


750 Word Stories.

by MeredithBrody



Category: NCIS: New Orleans
Genre: 750 words, F/M, Gen, Short Stories
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-14 02:55:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 39
Words: 30,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9156769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeredithBrody/pseuds/MeredithBrody
Summary: Another writing challenge. In 2017 I will write a short 750 word story every day. They will cover a range of topics, most likely. Some will be prompt based, some will be song based. Every day will be a new story.





	1. Written All Over Your Face

**Author's Note:**

> So, I go in on this story hard-core and kill someone off. Like you do. The lyrics and title of this chapter are from the song "Meet You There" by Busted.

_**I'm waiting for the perfect time to call you back** _   
_**'Cause I remember saying** _   
_**Don't wanna know the truth can't handle that** _   
_**And I tried to just forget you** _   
_**But I don't know how** _   
_**If only I knew** _

The phone had been in her hand for over an hour now, and she really didn't know what she could do next. No matter what happened she thought that calling him back would not be well received. There had to be something in this, but Merri wasn't that stupid. Given what had been happening in their lives recently she was pretty sure that no matter what happened there might not be that perfect time.

She'd told him she didn't want to know the truth of his feelings. She told him that she couldn't handle knowing if he cared for her as more than an agent. It had been the night after Russo, the night after they had crossed a line between what they were and what they should be. It was part of why she'd chosen to run, return to her parents then move to another city, get another job. But he'd called her, and she knew that if he was calling her right now it was serious.

Pride wasn't the type to do anything without cause, and the message he'd left had been simple. "We need to talk, Merri. Soon." That had made her pause for a second and think that she needed to get over this fear of calling him. She was worried that it was something pressing, but she was still so afraid that he wouldn't be able to forgive her for leaving the way that she did. Not that she blamed him I'd he couldn't. She wasn't sure she'd be able to.

_**I'm sorry if I slagged you you down I meant no harm** _   
_**When I heard the stories** _   
_**Said things I didn't mean should have stayed calm** _   
_**But sadly you got angry** _   
_**And it breaks my heart** _   
_**You're so mad at me** _

Part of the problem was, probably, the things she'd said in anger to others. Mostly to LaSalle when they'd spoken on the phone. It had only been once, and it was only a week after she'd said she wasn't coming back. He'd called her and she heard the stories he'd been telling about her. They weren't bad but she hadn't appreciated that he was talking about them. They were sacred in her mind and it had hurt her.

She'd said so many things she regretted that night. None of them about anyone but LaSalle, but she was sure he would have told the others. Merri was also pretty sure that there wouldn't have been context with what LaSalle had been saying to her. Her lighthearted Ness tended to end when she felt pushed. It was something she couldn't imagine going any better. She had to suck it up now and call him. It had to be done.

"Merri?" Pride answered the phone, and there was something in his voice that told her things weren't going well there. Was that why he was so insistent that she call him. Was that why he'd been so adamant that she do it quickly. "You need to get the first flight to New Orleans. Don't question me, just do it." That was not what she'd expected to be said, but she knew that if he was calling her to do this he knew he wasn't going to be able to stop her from wanting to stay.

_**It's written all over your face** _   
_**Such a painful thing to waste** _   
_**Tell me now where do we go** _   
_**Now the future's not so clear** _   
_**I can't believe we've ended here** _   
_**Where's the world that doesn't care** _   
_**Maybe I can meet you there** _

The flight was fast, and Pride was stood there at the airport to greet her. Instead of the awkwardness she'd expected, one look at his face told her that something terrible had happened and she was needed there. As soon as she got to him he had pulled her into a hug and held her close. She couldn't not hold him back, and as she did he whispered what she needed to hear in her ears. "I'm so glad you're home."

"What's going on?" She had to ask it, it would have taken too long to wait for Pride to tell her on his own. It seemed like he was struggling already, and while she didn't want to press him he'd been the one who demanded she get the immediate flight. It was something she was afraid of, but she was here and she was ready to face the music. On his face was the most pained look she could ever imagine.

"Chris is in a coma, they don't think he'll last another day. You were the only one left too say goodbye. We think he's waiting for you." In another world there would be somewhere that wouldn't care about her mistakes, maybe she could meet everyone there. Where she couldn't hurt anyone anymore. What could she say to make all this better? She didn't really know. But she needed to apologise, and tell her pseudo-brother she loved him. One last time.


	2. Winter's Weather

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of this chapter is from the song "Winter's Weather" by As It Is. The prompt of "cuddling in the cold" was given to me by my offline bestie Nemaline.

Why they had decided to come on vacation with her parents to upstate New York, Merri really didn't know. It had been a tradition when she and Emily had been children. They'd always gone to the same cabin, told the same stories and done the same things. It was part of how they'd known that it was winter. Christmas they normally did in Michigan. Two days with the extended Brody family, with the Coates' coming up to join them all on Christmas Day. Then, the rest of winter break was spent in New York before they were dropped off at boarding school. Now she was an adult, though, Merri just found it cold.

For the last two years, she'd been living in New Orleans, which was considerably warmer than this. Even at this time of year. For her, it was merely unpleasant. Her partner for this trip was even less prepared for the cold, and she wasn't sure that she'd seen him out of the electric blanket in the last few hours. He'd got under it when they'd arrived and had barely moved. "You gonna share that, King?"

"Only if you force me too. You should be used to the cold, you only transferred from Chicago three years ago." He pointed out, and Merri had to purposefully try and forget exactly how much she had hated the cold in Chicago, and how she'd actually refused to leave her apartment or the NCIS office unless she absolutely had to. To the point where she had been known for sending junior agents out to collect her perps for her. She hated the cold. Despite being born in the north. She hated it more than she cared to admit.

"For the last three years I've lived in the same place as you, and before that, I refused to leave the building between the months of November and March. It was too cold for me. I always hated the cold." She grumbled then gave him her saddest expression, hoping that looking like a puppy dog would get her a space in the blanket. Right now she was so cold she would have given him anything to agree to let her under the blanket.

"She really did, Dwayne. You should have seen her when she was a toddler and we tried to teach her to build a snowman with Emily." Merri knew the story her father was about to tell, and she wasn't so sure that she wanted her former boss and most recent boyfriend to actually learn about how she used to pile herself up in blankets whenever she wasn't allowed to just stay indoors. "She made herself an igloo out of blankets and refused to get out until we let her go back in the house. She inherited it from her mother. Olivia hates the cold. It's probably a southern thing."

Merri frowned again, looking back to King with a mixture of sadness and shivering, and after a second he opened his arm and she dived in with hum. Slightly cruelly she slid her frozen fingers under the hem of his shirt, causing him to yelp from the cold. That was an amusing sound, and in some ways, she truly hoped that she could hear it again. "I didn't let you under so that you could do that to me, Merri."

"No, you let me under because secretly you really wanted to cuddle too. I mean, it wouldn't be winter if you couldn't cuddle up with the person you love and pretend that the cold can't get you." She had come up with those rules with Emily when they'd first started bringing boyfriends along, though really, they'd only brought three between them. Daniel, James and now Dwayne. Boyfriends' rarely got this close.

So while it was cold, and sat here all that Merri could really think about was all the times she'd been here with Emily, and all the things they'd done with James and Daniel when they were trying to escape from their parents, it felt right that it was Dwayne was brought here with them. More than that, it felt like this was meant to be. This was how she would move on from all the horrors of her past. She was letting him see the darkest parts of her, but in this situation, he could see the light too. She could introduce him to Emily, and that would help her move on. All of this, helped her to move on.


	3. Needed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this was originally going to be to something else (possibly tomorrow's) suggested by galia_carrots however I then decided to emotionally destroy her and remembered the song "Perfect" by Simple Plan and that is where these lyrics came from.

_**And now I try hard to make it** _   
_**I just wanna make you proud** _   
_**I'm never gonna be good enough for you** _   
_**Can't stand another fight** _   
_**And nothing's alright** _

Whatever happened, Dwayne Pride was the kind of person who would try and make anything happen. he fought through everything and he'd keep hold of what was his for as long as it was reasonable to. His relationships, his family, his marriage. He had tried to work on them all but now he was in a situation where he was never going to have that chance again. He couldn't keep fighting Linda about all of it. So the conversation had ended with them agreeing to divorce. There was no way to fix it.

That had been two years earlier, and even now he was trying so hard to make everything work. This time it felt like someone else was leaving him without doing her share of the fighting. They weren't even in a relationship, but losing his partner was almost as distressing to him as losing his wife had been. Coming home to find a message saying that she'd left had not been what he'd needed and he wasn't going to let her go as easily as that. Maybe she'd hoped that he would. But this was the fight he was ready for, only because nothing would be alright without her.

He tracked her down, and it took longer than he would have liked to say that she was staying with her parents. He had gotten a flight, agreed to stay with Gibbs then rented a car to go and talk to her. He didn't deserve an agent who was as good as Merri on his team, but he needed her. Not just because she was an amazing agent but because she grounded him and in so many ways that was part of why he was so dependent on her. Pride wasn't stupid, he could admit to himself why he needed Meredith Brody back. He needed her to come home and return his life to the stable condition it had been.

He didn't know how it had come to be that she was the reason he could control himself better, he didn't know how she was the one who made him want to be better, but she was. He wanted to impress her, he wanted to be good enough for all the trust that she placed in him. He knew that she wouldn't give him any of that easily, and he needed to prove it every day. Even when she wasn't there. As he drove up the driveway to her parents' home he knew that this was a risk. Merri could slam the door in his face or she could run even further away, but it was a risk he felt like he had to take. If he didn't he didn't know what was going to happen to him.

Suddenly he had flashbacks to high school dates. Nervously waiting on the doorstep for someone to answer so that he could ask their daughter to the prom. Only she was almost 39 and he was almost 55. There was no high school dance for him to whisk her away to and try to impress her with his dancing. In fact it was the opposite, he was fairly sure that Merri wasn't going to be impressed with anything he did by now. She knew all of his tricks but at times he felt like he'd still barely scratched the surface of hers.

Despite the speech he had rehearsed in his mind, when Merri answered the door his mind went blank. her hair had grown out a little more, she had highlights and looked just as wonderful as she always did. Even though he had wanted to make a beautiful plea and give her a million reasons, they wouldn't come to him as he stood there. All that would come were the three words he longed to tell her. The words he hoped would convince her that she was needed in Louisiana as much as she was here. "Come home, please."

"Pride..." She was clearly surprised by his turning up there, but he couldn't say anything. He hoped that his face would show her that he was determined. He needed her home. Their whole team needed her home. Maybe all it would really need was him showing up here and begging for her to return to them. Her face told him that she was thinking about it, and he tried to stay there looking pathetic and needy. He almost fell to the floor when she said what he needed back. "I'll come home."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK so, this one is based on a roleplay verse I have with galia_carrots, where around the middle of season 2 Laurel went missing (March of this last year) and this is set five years later. To support herself and her daughter Laurel was working as a stripper, and was caught up in a raid Merri lead as an NOPD detective. While she's married to Pride with their twins.

Merri closed the door to the playroom and looked to her husband who was leant against her desk, still looking as though a very heave weight had been dropped on his head. Merri didn't blame him at all because she knew that he had never expected to see Laurel again. She'd disappeared 5 years ago, and there hadn't even been a hint of where she was. Of course, Merri knew now why, but that didn't help with the last five years of pain. She just nudged him softly and smiled, looking through the window. "I don't know if she'll stay after the court case, but I brought up how many legal troubles she'd be in now if she ran away again."

Pride still looked like he couldn't really get used to this idea or to the fact that Laurel was actually in that playroom, getting to meet her brother and sister. "I called Orion. He deserved to know he's a father." Was Pride's only response, until he slipped his hand into hers and looked at her as though she had managed to bring a part of him back. She rested her head on his shoulder and sighed slightly. There were some things about Laurel's time away that Merri wasn't ever going to tell him, but she knew he needed to know that she hadn't been in the city the whole time.

"She's only been back in New Orleans for 2 months. She's mostly been in Jackson, Mississippi. Living under an assumed name." While Pride had been informed of the case, he hadn't actually been allowed to do anything on it. Technically nor had Merri, but she had been helping with it since the beginning, trying to make sure that he knew that someone who cared about Laurel had been involved with the case. The hadn't stopped it going cold, with her ex being the only lead they had, and he'd been a weak one. "So, granddaddy Dwayne. How does that feel."

"Baby I only just got used to being daddy again." He commented, squeezing her hand softly. She knew that her pregnancy and the arrival of the twins had been hard for him, and that he had always coddled Emily more than Merri likes, but she hadn't had the heart to stop him. Not when the twins were some of the only things that stopped him when he was flying out the handle. That was another reason that she didn't want them in a daycare yet. They just went to the one set up here for the police. "She's back right now Merri, but how long before she's going to run again?"

"Why are you asking me?" Merri deflected, though in reality she knew exactly why. Until she'd settled here, with Dwayne, she'd run away from every challenge that had ever been given to her. She had run and run, until she found people who had actually cared about here. People who didn't only think of her as an afterthought. At the look Dwayne was giving her she smiled a little and shook her head, thinking about if she'd have been in Laurel's situation. But she couldn't picture it, she'd never been in anything resembling that situation. "I don't honestly know, Dwayne. She's not me, I'm not her. I'm hoping the assistance the department gives her will keep her here though."

"I don't know if I can make it through losing her again, especially not now I know she has a baby of her own." That would have been a fair comment, though Maggie was hardly a baby, she was probably around 6 or 7 months older than the twins, and that really stopped her from being a baby. Merri did know that losing Laurel and her daughter would not be good for her husband though, and she hoped that they stopped that. All she wanted was to shake Laurel and try to show her the pain she caused.

"She's going to have all the consequences from this, and while only a few of them are legal... She could have some with Orion, and if there are any outstanding warrants elsewhere." She wasn't sugarcoating the situation for Dwayne, because he knew better than that. She just wanted for him to keep his faith at the same time as focusing on the fact that this wasn't the girl they'd known five years earlier. "We'll try to keep her here, Dwayne. All we have is hope that she can turn things around."


	5. All Great Men Die Young

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I top day one, by killing LaSalle, Percy and Sebastian in one fell swoop!   
> Title and Lyrics in this one from "Horoscopes" by As It Is

_**All great men die young** _   
_**Just bodies in boxes** _   
_**Or dust in porcelain** _   
_**All great men die young** _   
_**Once my friends are gone** _   
_**I'll remember when we held the world with our fingers** _

This was possibly one of the saddest days that Merri had ever experienced herself, and the fact that there was only the four of them there to remember those they'd lost made it even harder. Merri regretted so much about it all, she regretted that she wasn't there, she regretted that the bomb had been meant for her. Mostly, she regretted that she hadn't put it all together fast enough that she'd been able to save her friends. Instead she'd gotten the call while she'd been sat having her counselling, talking about the situation that had lead to all of this.

They'd never expected that it would take 6 months for Russo's people to finally try and get their revenge on Merri. In fact, most had thought that she wasn't going to be a target regardless, that since he'd failed Russo was too low down on the totem pole for her to even be worth retaliation. They'd been wrong, clearly. Instead she was sat here with her drink nursed in her her hands, her head on Pride's shoulder as she held the tears in again.

Patton was the one seeming to keep it most together. He always had his emotions buried deeply. Merri guessed that that had helped when he was a gambler, he would have never really been able to bluff as well as he did if he hadn't been able to dampen his emotions down. She was probably second to him, even though she was more guilty than she'd ever imagined, she knew that she couldn't have helped any of it, and Sebastian, Sonja and Chris deserved better than her making it about her. She wasn't the victim here.

Neither Pride nor Loretta were coping that well. Merri knew that Loretta was depending on his boys more than she had been before, and she'd been trying to go round and help. Thankfully they'd seen sense and brought someone else in to do the autopsies on what they'd been able to find. Pride, on the other hand, seemed to be taking it as a personal insult. He wasn't taking any of it well, and Merri didn't blame him, but she also knew that he needed to pause and think more logically about it. That was why she had him staying with her.

One day she was sure they would get past this, but Merri wasn't sure when it would be. It was too hard for her to think about the fact that when she next went to visit her former team it would be all new agents, nobody she knew. Nobody she had history with and could gossip about Pride with. She was there for him, and she knew he wanted her to temporarily come back to NCIS to help him with the transition, but could she do that when she knew that it was going to push her back into an uncomfortable place.

That car bomb had been under the wrong car. Chris had given her a few rides while her car was in the shop, and that had lead to him being targetted. He and Sonja had been on their way to interview a victim. They'd been giving Sebastian a ride back to the office. How cruel was fate that the three innocents were the ones killed. It was Merri that they wanted, not the rest of her team. If it wasn't for her love of King, Loretta and Patton she would have run away from this.

Merri knew the old truism that only the good died young, but normally they died for a cause, for a reason. She hated that young people were killed by chance and hate and accident. Nobody deserved the kind of fate her friends had suffered. The anger was making her thing that she could do so much more than she was doing. She would do anything that she possibly could to bring their killers to justice. She was going to make sure that, one way or another, someone pay for the crime.

When she felt King's face turn into her neck a little she just wrapped her arms around him, knowing that it had all become too much for him too. They all needed to cry about this. They all needed to pass it along and move past that stage of grief. When the rest were as angry as she was, she knew that that was when the people who had turned Russo should be afraid. They should be very afraid.

_**All great men die young** _   
_**Just bodies in boxes** _   
_**Or dust in porcelain** _   
_**All great men die young** _   
_**I'm so fucking scared** _   
_**To outlive all I've ever known** _


	6. Focus On The Pain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK this one has some quite graphic descriptions of torture and has a heavy theme of torture and PTSD throughout. This one is entirely Auras fault.
> 
> The lyrics are from "Hurt" by Johnny Cash

_**I hurt myself today** _  
_**To see if I still feel** _  
_**I focus on the pain** _  
_**The only thing that's real** _  
_**The needle tears a hole** _  
_**The old familiar sting** _  
_**Try to kill it all away** _  
_**But I remember everything** _

What was it about the smell of rusted iron that took her right back to that moment, and why did it always seem to affect her at the most inopportune moments. She was stood in the kitchen at the office, trying not to focus on the sounds that we're playing only in her head. The creaking of the chains as one of her fellow captors finally succumbed to his injuries, left there, hanging, ignored now that he was no use to them. The raised voices, speaking a language she didn't understand, demanding of her things she didn't know and rewarding her with pain when she couldn't answer.

If she closed her eyes, she could still smell the burning flesh of the heated knife as it cut into her back. Cauterising the wound it made so she wouldn't bleed out too quickly. She had hoped that over time these memories would fade, that she'd be able to move on and never have to Relive those horrible days in that death camp. She didn't even remember being rescued, just of waking up in Rammstein, being told she'd been rescued. If they'd been a day later she probably would have been one of those just left hanging in the chains she'd been restrained by.

It was only when she looked down she noticed the blood, dripping slowly into the drain, and noticed the broken glass she was clasping far too tightly. She wasn't concerned, maybe that should have been the sign that something was desperately wrong with her mind right then. All she could do was open her hand and watch the pieces of glass fall away, apart from some small pieces that were embedded in the palm, slowly getting redder as more blood welled around them. It was fascinating, and the pain gave her something to hold on to, something real that she could use to ground herself.

Who it was that found her stood there, no doubt attracted by the sound of the broken glass, didn't push her to try and talk. It was as though she was watching herself from a great distance, Pride calling out to the others, giving them a job to do as he gently covered her palm and led her out to the car. He had been an agent a long time, by now she was sure he recognised the signs of PTSD. That couldn't be what this was though, could it. She'd felt like she vanquished those demons, now they were measly memories that wouldn't let her go.

Disconnected, that was what he said as he spoke to a doctor, stating that most of her career history was so compartmented that even he didn't know most of the details. Mentioned that if they determined she needed a psyche consult, he would need to bring in the staff psychologist at Belle Chasse, as nobody else in the state would have the necessary security clearances. She listened to all of this as if it were happening to someone else. As if she were a spectator, not the person who had suffered these incidents.

"Merri, come back to me." She heard whispered, and those were the words that got her attention. They were spoken to her. They were soft and gentle and pleading. He didn't want for her to be lost to him, and he knew that she needed something to pull herself back from. She didn't want these memories to define her but she couldn't stop thinking about them. Couldn't push them entirely out of her mind. "I know it's hard, but Merri you have to focus on me. Listen to me. Listen to my voice. Come back home."

The pleading continued and she focused on those words, that small showing of love that gave her hope that she could carry on. She blinked, trying to come back to herself, between the words and the now throbbing pain in her hand she was able to shake it off for the moment. When she finally found herself strong enough she turned and looked to Pride, and the relief on his face when she did showed her that he'd been afraid for her. Afraid that he was going to lose her and she knew, in that moment she knew that she needed to change things. She needed to ask for assistance in putting all of this behind her. "King, I really need help." She whipsered, and she knew that that was really only just the start of her recovery.


	7. Higher

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea what this one is, I was a little pressed for time since I was pushing forward with a chapter all evening and I was out all day. The lyrics and title are from "Higher" by With Confidence.

**_I could heal a scar_ **   
**_Hold me at your heart_ **   
**_Eat it all apart_ **   
**_I could be your one desire_ **   
**_And even when we're done_ **   
**_Tell me I'm the sun_ **   
**_Baby let me take you higher_ **

Pride knew that Merri wasn't the one that would ever admit that she felt for someone, and that meant that she wasn't going to tell him for real how she felt. He knew that she was too afraid of being hurt or left behind again. That was a willing fear when it came to her, as her previous partners had never been the best for her. He wanted to protect her more, but he wasn't sure that he would be able to do anything.

Even though she lived in another city now, they travelled to see each other, mostly she came to him, though they never told the others, and when she was in town he tended to stay in the apartment that had come along with the bar. She knew that he wanted her to come back to New Orleans, working somewhere else. He knew that she probably wouldn't, and maybe this was doomed because of that.

It never seemed like they were in tune when it came to that, but everything else they agreed on completely, and that was what she had needed at the time, and it was what he wanted. He wanted to know that he was in her heart, held there tightly. Now he wanted more, he wanted to know that she felt the same for him as he did. That probably wasn't going to ever happen, purely because she didn't talk about feelings.

They were tearing themselves apart, and he didn't want that. He could feel her pulling away, just waiting for him to say that it was too hard and they should stop seeing each other. That was never going to be what he said though. He truly believed that she was worth fighting for. He was going to do anything she wanted to prove that he loved her, and that he wasn't going to leave.

He saw her stood at the door to the balcony, looking out over Frenchman street. It was quiet in the dawn light, but only a few blocks over he was sure that the party was still going on Bourbon. One of the things he liked now was that when he slept here he was away from that noise, though the part by the office was quieter than other bits. "Baby, come back to bed." He said as he came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, feeling the cold of her skin which told him that she'd probably been stood there for a while

"We can't go on like this." She muttered quietly, even though her arms crossed on top of his, holding her closer to him. He recognised this as being one of the ways that she showed her vulnerability. She didn't want him to pull away and leave her alone again. She had a few tells, but few of them were as overt as this one. He was certain that she wasn't going to let go easily. He knew that while she was pulling away, she was also clinging on even tighter, because while they weren't even close to the perfect couple, they worked.

"You're right, we can't. I think about you all the time, and I hate it every time you leave and I feel like we're done." Feeling that way was part of what was telling him that it was time he and Merri move on, for something else about it as they couldn't let go. "Let's take this one step higher. Marry me?" It was the least romantic proposal in history, but Pride knew that that was what Merri would prefer. This was she was not the one having to break the moment. Nothing could ruin that, and when she just nodded he knew that she was finally beginning to accept that he loved her, and just maybe she really did feel the same.

When she turned in his arms he knew that she was going to be having second thoughts about agreeing to that, but he wasn't going to let her decide that this was a mistake. It wasn't, it was the best decision either of them had made in some time. As he kissed her softly he smiled, knowing that she would only react to a display of how he felt, at which point he reached behind him and grabbed one of the necklaces he had, unfastened it then putting it around her neck. "It's not a ring, but it will work for now. I love you."


	8. On My Own Anymore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is set a little further on than the prologue in my story "Save Me A Spark", and may eventually be expanded on (or written differently) in that fic. Title and Lyrics from "Cross My Heart" by Marianas Trench.

_**And I do want to show you I** _   
_**Will run to you, to you until I** _   
_**Can't stand on my own anymore I** _   
_**Cross my heart and hope to die** _

Merri knew that King still didn't entirely trust her, and she couldn't actually blame him for that. She had turned up after almost 2 years gone with a child he had never known she was having. Even after explaining the story she hadn't actually blamed him for being hesitant for returning their relationship to what it had been. They were a couple, but they both still needed the distance that living mostly separate lives brought. She wanted to prove to him that she was never going to leave him again, that King and Bevan were her whole life. Her son deserve to know his father, and she knew that they loved each other deeply, it was just taking time to recover.

In her life, normally, she was the one needing that reassurance. Normally she was the one who was afraid that her partner would up and leave. She knew that that was a remnant of her relationship with James, and while she'd loved him deeply, their relationship had left it's own kind of scars on her beaten and broken heart. She had only been back for three months, it was going to take more time for them to readjust to how life was going now. Every night, without fail, King was there. They'd have dinner together, he'd put Bevan to bed, then they'd sit and talk about their days. The only thing that wasn't a normal family was that he would leave every night, and she never asked him to stay.

Tonight though, she was going to change all of that. She didn't want him to leave again, and she didn't want it to be because she wasn't asking him to stay. That was essentially her leaving as much as it was him. If their custody arrangement was reversed, it would be her leaving every night. She would run to the ends of the earth if King needed her to, but it was harder to figure out how to show him that. Tonight Bevan had been exhausted, so he'd fallen asleep in the middle of dinner. Now she and King were sat cuddling on the sofa, some movie playing on the computer screen that she wasn't paying attention to. Her attention was drawn far more to the fingers lazily tracing some sort of pattern on her side than anything else.

If she didn't ask him now, she was never going to be able to get the words out. She was never going to actually take the plunge and ask him to stay with her, because the moment would be gone, and she wouldn't be able to get it back. There was a lull in the movie and she just tilted her head up and looked at the silhouette of his face. "I need you to stay King, I want you to stay. Please just... stay here with us." There, she got it out. It sounded like begging to her ears, almost pitiful, but it was the truth. She needed him now. For almost two years she'd wanted him there every day, now they were back she really wasn't sure that she could watch him go back to the office again.

"I thought we weren't going to rush things?" he asked, and she scoffed a little. Rushing things would have been him moving in with her before they'd done anything, before they'd addressed what was going on between them. This wasn't rushing, but before she could point that out he chuckled a little and kissed her head. "I have been waiting for you to ask me to stay since you came back. I knew you were independent, and I never wanted to push myself into your life with Bevan." he sounded so worried that he was going to make things harder for their toddler, when really all he could do was make it easier, Bevan really loved his father.

"We're your family King, come home to us." She smiled softly, and at the grin that spread across his face she knew that this had been the right moment, after the right time, when they were both comfortable with the situation they were in. Merri wasn't entirely sure how Bevan would take it, but as he was 18-months-old she was fairly certain that he wasn't going to cause problems. If King was with them Merri felt like her scars of the last two years would start to heal. All of them were caused by his absence, but now he was finally home.


	9. When Your Soul Embarks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is inspired jointly by the song "I Will Follow You Into The Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie and a scene from the second season of the TV show "Episodes" where the protagonists are talking about how they always assumed they'd be at each other's funerals while they attend a funeral.

**_If heaven and hell decide_ **   
**_That they both are satisfied_ **   
**_Illuminate the 'no's on their vacancy signs_ **   
**_If there's no-one beside you_ **   
**_When your soul embarks_ **   
**_I will follow you into the dark_ **

Pride wasn't exactly sure what it was about funerals that always made people want to talk about their deepest secrets, but it happened. He'd been at funerals with plenty of people, and the result was always the same. They would blurt out their feelings or they'd shut down. It tended to be the two ways it went, and he could normally tell who was going to be what. That's why he was surprised that his usually stoic girlfriend seemed to be upset. "You doing OK?"

"Yeah. Just thinking." She replied, and it was just a hare too fast. Pride knew that there was something else going on in her mind, but he didn't know if he was going to be able to coax it out of her. Maybe this was because it wasn't the funeral of a victim, or of someone killed before their time. This was a 90-year-old former instructor they'd barely known, but were here out of professional courtesy.

"What about?" He prodded quietly as everyone started to gather around the grave. He hung back, feeling like he was intruding on the family's grief if he didn't. Merri followed along with him, and as they stood toward the back of the throng he slid his hand into hers and tried to reassure her that no matter what was going through her mind, life probably wasn't that bad.

"How I don't actually think anyone will be at my funeral." That was a morbid thought, but he could actually understand it. Merri's family was small, and unless there was a tragedy her parents were going to go before her. Emily was already gone. The closest she had outside of them was her ex and him. She had friends, but since Russo she tended to keep even them at an arm's length. "I don't make connections easily."

"You have friends, Merri. There will be people there." He reassured her, knowing that no matter what, Merri was never going to be one of those people with only 3 people at her funeral. Her end was probably written out much like his. A flag on the coffin and full honours, they had accepted that when they took on the jobs they did. Especially now she was running an office of her own.

"People from work, sure. Maybe James." That was almost exactly what this funeral was, so he couldn't argue with her about that. There would be a lot of people there because they felt like they were obligated to, because this man had shaped the profession they worked in. While Merri clearly didn't think that she had made an impact, Pride knew that she had. More than she clearly thought she had. He was about to argue that when she spoke again. "Actual friends... I don't think I have any other than you."

"Merri, I will always be at your funeral, and you have more friends than you think." He didn't want her to continue thinking that she wasn't going to have anyone there when she actually died. It didn't truthfully matter, really. You weren't going to know anyway, but it was a status symbol, and it proved how you were thought of in life. Maybe that was what she was thinking about. That her mistakes would mean that she didn't deserve what she might actually get.

"I'm 15 years younger than you, I think that's likely the other way round." She shrugged off his comment about her friends, and he knew that that was part of how she would cope with the truth of what he was saying. She would try to ignore it. Try to pretend that he wasn't right, because otherwise she would have to accept that maybe she wasn't going to be as lonely as she believed, but that could only be a good thing. She deserved that.

"No. If there's nobody there with you when you die... I'll be there with you." He squeezed her hand tightly, then gave up with the small gesture and just wrapped an arm around her, pulling her into his side and kissing the top of her head. He knew that sometimes, she needed to know that she mattered, and clearly this was one of the times where he needed to let her know that he wasn't going to go anywhere. No matter what, she was stuck with him. "I promise you that, Merri. I love you." He spoke against her ear as he held her close. They were a package deal.


	10. Another Perfect Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was inspired by the song "Another Perfect Day" by American Hi-Fi. It won't be what you expect, I promise!

_**So I might try to leave it all behind** _   
_**I know tomorrow's not so bright now** _   
_**I'll say goodbye 'cause nothing good can last** _   
_**You wear and figured nowhere fast** _

She'd never really thought about the fact that she was going to, eventually, have to leave the place she'd come to call home. She didn't want to leave, she didn't want to be pushed to that point, so she kept trying to ignore the part of her that pointed out that staying was a bad idea. She knew there was more out there, she knew there wasn't always going to be a situation where she could pick and choose where she stayed. Eventually there would be a connection that she couldn't overcome to run. Chicago had been good to her, she'd made plenty of friends here, but, there was nothing pressing telling her that she should stay for good. After three years here, it was time to move along. There weren't all that many offices she hadn't worked at or had temporary assignments at now, but she was going to look at where needed someone, where she could do the most good, even if it was only for a few days.

Merri had always been accused of running, but she wasn't sure now that it was wrong. For a long time she'd told herself that she wasn't running. She was just reassuring herself that her past wasn't going to catch up with her. It shouldn't be dictating her future, but it was, and it likely always would be. There was so much that she didn't want to have to explain to new people, so when she started getting close to someone she worked with, she would immediately start planning to run. She would start planning where she needed to go to get away from everyone. She knew that it wasn't going to be worth pushing through here. Even if the people she liked had started to try and draw her in more. That was actually what was making her want to run more than anything else. She knew now that she couldn't keep this going forever. They were getting too close, they were breaking down her carefully crafted walls. Things she absolutely couldn't let them breach.

_**And today I don't know how to keep it all inside** _   
_**But I guess I'll let it slide** _   
_**I still believe it when you say** _   
_**It's another perfect day** _

Two years later she was sitting having the same thoughts, only in a different city in another state. With another group of people being the ones getting too close. She'd always said she'd know when she needed to stay somewhere. That she'd always know when the person that she was meant to stay with showed up in her life, and she knew that she had that now. It wasn't one person though, it was six. Some more than others, absolutely. But all six of them made this place the home she had fallen in love with, when she'd moved here she'd been told it wasn't the place that made the home, it was the people. That was definitely true in her experiences now. This was the family she'd been craving since Emily had died. Then of course something had happened that had messed all of that up. She couldn't stay with NCIS after it, and after she'd tried to leave... She'd come home. She'd turned up, moved back into her old house and found another job. She'd seen her friends every day, and she'd been determined that she'd be there now until the end.

A year after her return, she experienced her first 'perfect day' since Emily had died. She'd been sat with her friends, the relationships all developing as they did when the professional considerations were removed. That was when she felt the arms of her former-boss wrapping around her and she relaxed against him. That was the kind of thing she'd craved, and in that moment it had seemed so perfect. That lead to even more changes, and more perfect days. Those were things that she thought were a myth when she was struggling along from assignment to assignment. She realised that every feeling of "home" she'd had in those other assignments weren't really "home", they were something, but home was the feeling she had when there was the smell of gumbo drifting through her house when she got home, the shouts of laughter as her other friends gathered around their kitchen table to share stories. Those were the moments that made these days so perfect. She believed it every time when King told her that the day was perfect, because they were. New Orleans had been everything she dreamed of, and she knew it was special the day she'd tried to run away. She had just ended up coming back home.


	11. Skin and Bones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is another one to skip if the discussion of death and torture is not to your tastes. Title and lyrics from "Skin and Bones" by Marianas Trench

_**It'll only hurt a bit, I still feel like shit** _   
_**And I think you won't be able to recognise me now** _   
_**It's easier to quit, It's harder to admit** _   
_**And you're pushing me, you're fucking pushing me** _   
_**Feeling so easy, make me skin and bones** _   
_**I'm always on my knees for you** _   
_**Break like it's even when you're leaving** _

What was it that people said about pain, that it only lasts a short time, even when it was the worst of pains. Right now Dwayne Pride was disagreeing with that assessment. He didn't know how long he'd been here but it felt like months. They had taken him from right there in front of the office, and they hadn't told him what they needed from him. He felt like crap, he was sure that he looked even worse. He thought there wasn't a part of him that wasn't bruised and broken, but he knew that he should try and hang on. If only because he was fairly sure his wife and his friends wouldn't even be able to recognise him after all of this. He didn't want to think about the fact that they were probably out there trying to find him.

They kept asking him the same questions. About Merri, about Chris and Sonja, Loretta, Patton and Sebastian. About his children, and his granddaughter. There didn't seem to be a part of his life that they hadn't probed into. They knew everything and that was more disconcerting than he cared to admit. His eldest daughter was only just 25, his younger children were four. What could they possibly have to do with him. He understood the question about his team and his wife more, but they still weren't comforting. He didn't know what to think when it came to the questions of what he'd do if they were there instead of him. If it were his team, he'd be doing what he assumed they were doing, and if it was his family, he would have killed anyone who got in the way of him finding them. Their faces were the only things that were keeping him going most of the time right now, but as he thought about them he began to worry that they weren't safe. That he was going to get home and learn they had been hurt. Or he was never going to see them again. Both hurt him so much.

They were pushing him to tell them things, and he didn't even know who they wanted to punish anymore. Sometimes he thought that it was him. They wanted to cause him more pain by forcing him to talk about his family. It was almost working, but not quite. It would be easier right now to give up, let the injuries he'd sustained just take him away. Take him somewhere where he couldn't endanger the people he loved the moost. He wanted to make sure that they were protected and that meant he didn't talk. He wanted to see his wife one last time, he wanted to see their children, he wanted to see his eldest daughter and his only granddaughter. He didn't want to die, he had so much left to live for, but he also didn't want to put anyone in danger. If the only way to prevent that was to allow himself to succumb. If not to his injuries then to the starvation that was rapidly approaching. He wasn't sure when he'd last been given for and water. All he knew was that the pain would have stopped him from eating anyway, it wouldn't stay down for all that long.

They walked out the room for what he thought was the last time. No matter what happened now he was pretty sure that he was never going to be dealing with them again. By the next time they came to question him he'd be gone, and there were two ways that could happen. He just hoped that the people who had always had his back would be able to rescue him in time. The truth was he was fairly sure that they would be in time, but that didn't actually comfort him. He knew that even if they did arrive he might be too far gone to save, but he would get to see his beautiful Meredith's face one last time. As sounds and light started to fade he saw the light as the door opened and the sounds of more voices than he could imagine being in this one room. It was a cacophony and if he'd had the energy he would have covered his ears. Seconds later gently hands touched his face, but he couldn't open his eyes. The smell told him that Meredith was there, and she was going to take him home with her. She was his home.


	12. Deep In This Sleeplessness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, the prompt for this one is insanely long, but I have been listening to this song NON-STOP since last night because I couldn't stop seeing Merri in it. This didn't go as expected, but it's good.
> 
> Title and lyrics from "Who Do You Love" by Marianas Trench

_**Well I've been deep in this sleeplessness I don't know why** _   
_**Just can't get away from myself** _   
_**When I get back on my feet I'll blow this open wide** _   
_**And carry me home in good health** _   
_**God it's been so long wide awake that I feel like someone else** _   
_**I'll miss the way that you saw me, or maybe the way I saw myself** _   
_**But I came back to you broken, and I've been away too long** _   
_**And I hear the words I've spoken, and everything comes out wrong** _   
_**I just can't get this together, can't where I belong** _   
_**Who do you love?** _

How long had she been awake now? She didn't even know anymore and it didn't seem to matter. Ever since she'd left New Orleans she'd lost track of almost everything. She knew that part of it was the depression that she'd fallen into, and other parts of it were related to the regular instances of PTSD that she had too. Merri was self-aware enough to know that she needed to get some help, but the idea of getting help on her own was hard, and she didn't know if she had a reason for it right now either. If she had somewhere to go, something to do, it would be very different, but it wasn't. This was the way she was living right now, in the back of her cousin's apartment, not really sure what she was going to do with the rest of her life now she'd left NCIS.

Why she wasn't sleeping though, she didn't know. She didn't feel at all like herself, and instead of going and doing something stupid she went to wake Jen up, hoping that her cousin would have at least some idea of what she could do. She dealt with this kind of thing more often than Merri herself did. They sat down and, for the first time since leaving New Orleans, Merri actually spoke about how she was feeling. About how she couldn't get out of her own head, and how it was so hard for her to think about the future. As she'd hoped, Jen knew what to do, and most of it had involved finding a therapist and getting some help. Then she'd said the words that surprised Merri most of all. "Why don't you just go back to New Orleans?" It seeming too simple, would it ever really work?

She did deeply miss the city, she missed her friends and all their messages told them that they missed her too. That despite what she did or didn't do they wanted her to be with them. No matter what she did, she knew that going back to work for NCIS wasn't going to be possible, and honestly she didn't know what else she could do. But she had enough money to live there without working for a while, and she was prepared to do that and find herself. So she booked a flight, called Loretta to find out if she could have her house back, and set her course south. The therapist she found was there too, but for the moment she still felt like she was sleepwalking, not really actually doing the things that she was trying. It made settling back in harder, es[equally with Jen calling every day.

The others welcomed her with open arms, and she tried to explain everything going on, but the words didn't come out right. They were just stopping her from truely explaining what was necessary for her right now, thought they were all patient with her. She missed the ways that they used to look at her, or maybe the way she saw herself through their eyes. She felt like she'd lost something within her since she'd left this place, and while coming back had helped her settle a little more, she didn't know what else she could do. It took months more, doing nothing specific, working in Pride's Bar with Buckley to help her feel useful, otherwise she wasn't doing anything. Until the day she'd had to come by the office, and found herself sitting and comforting the sister of a victim. She didn't do anything else, but she had helped.

Pride recognised how much good that had done, for both Merri and for their visitor. He'd of course known that someone doing that was helpful for all of them, since the job had used to be filled by his ex-wife. Now he brought Merri in to do it, carved her a little stipend out of their budget and called her in when they needed her. It was perfect, and she still felt like she was helping. She started to get back on her feet, and soon enough she finally remembered who she was. She never wanted to go back to being who she'd been, what the job she'd loved had turned her into. Now though, she was able to help, and she was making sure that others were coping. she was able to help Pride head off the same problems in other agents too. She was needed, and it helped.


	13. Still Remembering 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, As It Is released a new song... and it is LITERALLY Merri and King... so this one and tomorrow's are both set to parts of this song, and they are the same scene, just from different points of view. Cameo from Gibbs.
> 
> So, title and lyrics from "Still Remembering" by As It Is

_**My heart's as heavy** _   
_**As these nights are long** _   
_**And I curse these spaces between my fingers** _   
_**Where for a time you belonged** _   
_**And you'll find somebody new who's worth your time** _   
_**Someone who's words sound sweeter than mine** _   
_**I'll hope to mend** _   
_**Trying my best just to get by** _

She was in the US for one week, and she was trying to fit in seeing as many people as she could. She'd seen her parents, and today she had arranged to have dinner with her former mentor, but the minute she'd walked in and seen the table set for three she'd known there was something going on, when she pressed he just smiled and shrugged. "I have an old friend of ours coming by. This is probably him at the door."

"Jethro it better not be..." She had a horrible feeling that she knew who was invited, and sure enough as soon as he opened the door she saw Dwayne Pride stood there. Unlike her, he didn't seem at all surprised, so Gibbs had obviously told King that she was going to be visiting, and had arranged for him to come while she was in the country. Gibbs knew she had disappeared from New Orleans and little had been said since. She didn't miss or regret leaving, as she had needed to, but she did miss them all.

They managed to sit through dinner, talking about other mutual friends the three of them had, arranging other things, keeping things non-specific, at least until Gibbs excused himself to take a call. At that point King and Merri ended up sitting across from each other looking uncomfortable, if only because she didn't have a clue what she should say to him. This was the first time she'd seen him since the night after the Russo affair. Thankfully, he saved her from having to say the first words. "We still miss you, Merri."

"I miss you all too, but I don't think that I'll ever be coming back." It sounded so horrible like that, but that wasn't what she meant. She truly missed her friends, the city, but the bad memories that were associated with it weren't worth what she would have to go through. It was hard for her to think of anything. She was so worried about everything and that would only increase if she returned to New Orleans. "I'm healing, from the Moultrie, from Emily... from Russo. But I need to stay away."

"Where are you now?" It was an innocent enough question, but she still didn't want to answer it, because that would give away what she was doing now. It wasn't that she didn't want King to know, or that she thought he would endanger her, she just knew that it wasn't going to be worth it if he started looking more into it. She wanted to keep the ambiguity, so she had to think of something.

"Safe." It was the only thing she could actually say without giving everything away. She knew that he would take that answer at face value, as she had never lied to him before about her level of safety. She wasn't that kind of person. There were things she wanted to say to Pride, things he deserved to know before she disappeared from his life, likely forever. "Thank you for everything, King. You taught me I was worth love again. That was the most important thing I needed to ever learn." For such a long time she had thought that she didn't deserve to be loved, but King had shown her that that was a lie.

"I just want you to be happy, Merri. Promise you'll keep in touch." That answer warmed her heart further, and she was grateful that King was her friend. They may been going their separate ways tonight, but she knew that she still had a friend there, someone she could call if she ever desperately needed him. A look of sadness crossed his face, and she knew what was coming, the hardest words than anyone spoke. Harder when you were acknowledging that a potential relationship was all in their past. "I guess this is goodbye?"

"I promise. I should go, Jethro I'll see you tomorrow." She called through to the friend she'd stopped in to visit while she was back in the states for her security briefings. King had been unexpected, and she didn't know what to think. "Goodbye." She smiled a little as she went to hug him, kissing his cheek. Trying to memorise his smell. She was never going to see him again, she knew that from the finality of their goodbyes. Once upon a time, maybe they had a future. Not any longer, and they both seemed to be at peace with that.

_**Can you tell me what hurts more** _   
_**Is it remembering or forgetting** _   
_**The past that once was ours** _   
_**Am I remembering, still remembering or forgetting** _


	14. Still Remembering II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is the second half to the one I posted yesterday. So again, lyrics and title from "Still Remembering" by As It Is

_**I've kept your portrait** _   
_**Framed within my mind** _   
_**It remained untouched of your paints and brushes** _   
_**Still it changed over time** _   
_**When you left not without warning or regrets** _   
_**Nothing would fill this hole in my chest** _   
_**Here's your farewell** _   
_**I wish you nothing but the best** _

God she looked the same as she had the last time he'd seen her, there were a few more lines on her face, her hair was maybe a little longer, but she was essentially exactly the same as she had been five years earlier. He kept the conversation light, telling her about Chris and Sonja's relationship. How Addie was doing now she was an agent. he didn't want to talk about anything more. At least not until he was sure she was OK. When Gibbs decided to absent himself from the table, King just looked over to his former friend and said what was first on his mind. "We still miss you, Merri."

"I miss you all too, but I don't think that I'll ever be coming back." That seemed very final, and it was clear that she was sure of that. No matter what happened between the two of them he felt like this was the last time he was ever going to see her. After a second she just continued and it let him know more about why she couldn't ever come back. "I'm healing, from the Moultrie, from Emily... from Russo. But I need to stay away."

"Where are you now?" He wasn't trying to push, and he wasn't trying to get more out of her than she was willing to share, he just wanted to know that she wasn't doing anything too dangerous. That whatever she was doing now was what she felt like she was meant to be doing. He wasn't entirely sure anymore what was her calling. She had been the best agent he'd had the pleasure of calling his, and there had been an unspoken thing between the two of them, but he didn't know anymore.

"Safe." That was a fair answer, and it was clear that she didn't want for him to know anything more. King could accept that, though he wasn't sure he could accept that she was never going to come back to the city that she had treated like a home for two years. "Thank you for everything, King. You taught me I was worth love again. That was the most important thing I needed to ever learn." His heart almost broke at those words, remembering the broken and depressed woman who had left his care, how he desperately wished he could have done more for her, convinced her that leaving was not the answer.

"I just want you to be happy, Merri. Promise you'll keep in touch." Even if there was no hope for them, he didn't ever want to forget her, and he hoped that she didn't want to forget him either. Sure, remembering hurt, but it was worse to think that you were completely forgotten by someone you cared so deeply about. "I guess this is goodbye?" He asked it as a question, but he already knew the answer. She was going to go back to wherever she was assigned now, and he would return to New Orleans, and they would email from time to time, but that hole would remain.

"I promise. I should go, Jethro I'll see you tomorrow." King watched as she called through Gibbs, just memorising the way she moved. She was incredibly beautiful, even when he knew he never stood a chance with whatever their relationship could have been. She was so amazing, and he was so proud that she had allowed him to even have a small space in her life, and that she had been a part of his. Before she stepped away she hugged him close, then she paused before getting to the door. "Goodbye."

"That go well?" Gibbs walked back in the room, and King could tell that he'd been listening the whole time. he wasn't going to lie and make it sound like he and Merri were going to be perfect. All he could really think was that he already knew that in another life they would have so much more going for them, and he would have a very different future, a future with her.

"As well as it could have done. God I miss her, but it wasn't meant to be." He looked at the door she'd closed behind her, and there was an air of the end all around him. He was going to miss what they could have had every day. She was an amazing woman, and someday she would make someone very happy, it just was never destined to be him.

_**Can you tell me what hurts more** _   
_**Is it remembering or forgetting** _   
_**The past that once was ours** _   
_**Am I remembering, still remembering or forgetting** _


	15. A Series Of Unfortunate Events

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, my mam and I marathoned six episodes of this today and I had to write it into a drabble.

Merri hadn't really known what to do to celebrate the night before Laurel's wedding, so few people were even invited to the service that she wasn't even sure who to invite. Laurel seemed to have lost most of her friends since having Maggie, and that meant that the only people invited were Sonja and Loretta, then Loretta had been caught up in autopsy. It had left Sonja feeling a little left out, it seemed. "Why are we doing this for the bridal party?"

"Because the bride is breastfeeding feeding, and the stepmother of the bride is pregnant." Laurel replied before Merri could say anything. Technically she wasn't Laurel's stepmother, she and Pride weren't married, but she was hoping that that wouldn't necessarily be noticed right now. Linda was absent, by Laurel's choice, and she'd asked for Merri to step in and take over the duties of making sure she looked amazing and of looking after the baby through the ceremony. Then they were just going to Pride's closed bar for food before going about the rest of their days as normal.

"Don't you want to watch this Sonja?" Merri teased, having thought that a Netflix show about miserable things happening to children would be right up Sonja's alley. She had seen the film version and been disappointed, but she had enjoyed reading the books when she'd been in college and the TV show was going to be fun to actually watch. If Sonja ever actually sat down so they could watch it.

"I read these books when I was a kid." She grumbled, then went into the kitchen and stole one of Pride''s stash of beer, not that Merri blamed her, if she hadn't been expecting she probably would have been drinking too, but she wasn't, she was going to be good until she could wean her kids, then she would likely fall off the enforced wagon again and happily enjoy a beer after work with her partner... and take the opportunity to get wasted at family functions.

"Me too." Laurel chuckled, and suddenly Merri remembered how much older than them both she was. She had ten years on Sonja, and more than 15 on Laurel. Which sobered her up when she realised that she could actually be old enough to be Laurel's mother. She tried not to think of herself that way though. She was 39 years young and having her first... and her second.

"I was in college. God you two are so young." She couldn't help but pretend to grumble as she thought about that, because it was really hilarious to her that they were so much younger but right now they were all there in the same place, in the same situations expecting the same event to happen. It was somewhat fitting that they were going to watch a show about terrible happenstances. That seemed synonymous with Merri's life up until she settled in New Orleans.

"Should I start actually calling you mom?" Laurel started to tease, and that once again reminded her that she was, actually, old enough to have that title and she internally started to freak out a little, reminding herself that she wasn't officially a mommy just yet. She still had a couple of months to go until that point. Looking over to where the youngest invitee to the party was sleeping to make sure their silliness wasn't waking six-month-old Maggie up Merri just started shaking her head and patting her belly.

"Not until these two show up. I still have two months to go." She knew she likely didn't have that long, not with twins, but she was hoping that they would at least hold on for a little while. Just long enough for her to actually get used to the idea of being a mom. "Come on Sonja, you'll love it. It's like Harry Potter for miserable people."

"I hate Harry Potter too." Sonja continued grumbling, making it clear that she wasn't going to be the easiest person to convince into marathoning the Harry Potter movies as some point in the future. Though that sounded like a great idea to Merri. She'd have a lot of fun with that, and she thought Laurel might too.

"So this would be perfect then." She smiled, and as she sat back she couldn't help but chuckle as she knew that everything was right where it was meant to be. Maybe it wasn't elegant how she'd gotten her, the important thing was, she had.


	16. I Hope We'll Meet Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I accidentally missed a day (which I've now made up with this) but... yeah this song struck again. Anyone who has followed me since the Voyager days will know that this song is responsible for over 50 deaths or sad fics in my career, and here it is causing more sad.
> 
> So, lyrics and title from "I Hope You Meet Again" by The Saw Doctors.

_**You don't say how you love but it shows in every word** _   
_**When she played her favourite music it was the best you'd ever heard** _   
_**And you tell me that she couldn't watch the violence cut by men** _   
_**When all is quiet throughout the land I hope you'll meet again** _

Merri wasn't really sure how anyone still listened to her when Emily came up, or even when anything tangentially related to Emily came up. She talked about her all the time, whenever she could, she just knew that without that connection she would start losing Emily and then she would never feel that closeness again, that security. She didn't really know what to think, she didn't know what to say. All she knew was that she couldn't let Emily go, even when others started moving on, going about their daily lives. Merri couldn't do that, how was she supposed to go on when Emily wasn't there to go on with her. Was she just meant to pretend that she could forget her too, pretend that Emily had never existed. Merri wasn't sure that would ever be possible for her. Emily meant far, far too much for her to do that.

Every word she said was full of love for her sister, the best friend she'd had through every shitty day in boarding school, through every sleepless night, through every bad report and bad grade. They'd been there through first boyfriends, first girlfriend (for Emily), first dates, first nights, first times. They had shared every first, but now there would be no more that Merri could share with her twin. When she heard songs that reminded her of Emily, or sounded like Emily, or that Emily had loved she simply couldn't listen to them. Emily had always had a talent for finding beautiful music, and it was some of the best Merri ever heard, but she wasn't anywhere near as musically minded. It was too hard for Merri to think about sometimes, but she still couldn't stop talking about her sister. Couldn't break that one last bond that kept them connected.

Then came the day that Merri had been dreading, the day that nobody was listening so she fell silent. She stopped speaking about Emily, stopped speaking about what she cared about, what she thought, what she believed. Emily became this little thing that was locked away inside of her. She was a secret that Merri didn't like to share, something for only her. When she was breaking down on a case or suffering from insomnia she couldn't shake, Merri would take Emily out of that box and talk to her, look at her pictures and remember the woman who had been the other half of her soul. She had been broken since Emily died, and didn't know how to cope with it. How did anyone move on after losing such an enormous part of their life? Merri thought she got better at it, but she was just better at hiding.

Merri's job was something that Emily had hated, she didn't like to think about the violence that came along with the job, didn't like to think of the danger that Merri was in every day. Normally Merri didn't even think about it, then John Russo had come along, and now Merri couldn't stop. All she could think about was the fact that she dealt with violence every day and she wanted to stop that. She wanted to try and repair what was left of her. She wanted to try and live how Emily would have wanted her too. Mostly though, she wanted to be able to cry, she wanted to be able to grieve. She wanted to be able to know that if she fell it wasn't going to take anyone else with her. She couldn't be held responsible for any more pain than was already levelled on her shoulders.

So she'd disappeared, she'd tried to come back, tried to tell them that she could carry on, but she couldn't. She wanted to meet Emily again and that would put the people she loved in danger. She needed to fully heal then she could come home, then she could tell them all that she had been broken to the point of uselessness, and she'd needed to repair. Emily Brody was her guide, and she loved her forever. That gaping hole in her heart and soul was never going to change, but the longer Merri ignored it the harder it was going to be for her to realise it. It had taken almost 9 years, but Merri finally broke down and cried for her sister, cried for all the days they would never have, all they would miss. And she cried for herself, for the woman too broken to go on.


	17. The City Will Bring You Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this song popped up tonight on my Discover Weekly on Spotify... and now I have emotions. This will be used a few times I'm sure.
> 
> The title and lyrics are from "City Lights" by The Big Time

_**I remember the way I felt** _   
_**When I walked you out that morning and you didn't look back** _   
_**I'll never live that night again** _   
_**without the lights in your eyes, my world has gone black** _   
_**The city will bring you home** _

Pride had never really felt the same as he did right now. He knew that He was never going to be entirely over the effect that Meredith Brody had had on him, at first as just a friend, then as more than that. He didn't even know exactly when his feelings about her had changed, they just had and he'd had to learn how to handle that. For the most part he thought that he had, he'd just tried to treat her the same as he treated Chris and Sonja, but he also knew that it didn't entirely work all the time. He was softer on Merri, and when she did something he didn't agree with all she needed to do was look at him with those beautiful, dark eyes and say "I'm sorry" and he just caved. He knew that it wasn't fair, but he just couldn't help it.

He had even managed to survive through her occasional boyfriends and much more common night partners. The ones who thought they were more than a distraction for her, who were going to get a rude awakening. When they first met, King had thought that Merri only had feelings for her ex-fiance, but he'd quickly learnt that that wasn't true. She just didn't trust many people enough to let them in. She'd tried with a psychologist they'd worked with on a couple of cases, but the aforementioned ex-fiance had ended that. He'd also ended her next attempt, with a pilot who had never really seemed to be the right fit for Merri. Where James had been during the whole situation with Russo, King didn't know. But it would have been easier for them all if he'd been there to distract Merri then. The only time he'd wished for James to come.

That night, King had been the one to comfort Merri, and that had ended up with them in his bed. How it had happened he didn't really know, but the underlying tension they'd been battling for years, ever since she'd arrived, all came to a head. He could never forget that night, everything that they'd talked about, and that was actually a little more painful than he had expected, because without that Merri leaving would have been less painful. Unfortunately after they'd spent the evening together, making love and talking about all the problems they had had, he had walked her out and kissed her one last time. Then she'd said goodbye and turned toward Jackson Square. He hadn't seen her since, and she hadn't looked back. At the time he hadn't known that it would be the last time he saw her, but he knew that something had changed.

In the months since he had thought a lot about some of the things that she'd said, the things that should have tipped him off that she was going to run, things that she couldn't have gotten past. She'd even told him that when he woke up in the morning he'd forget about her. How wrong she'd been. He could still smell her on his sheets, and if he closed his eyes he could remember the taste of her lips, and the feel of her skin beneath his fingers. He felt like giving up without her, he didn't even realise how much of a controlling influence she'd been until he started thinking about his behaviour since she'd left, now he didn't have his partner. The lights in her eyes had been his guide through the darkness for so long, now the world was just black and he couldn't change that.

The only thing that he could hope was that New Orleans seemed to imprint people with a homing beacon. he was confident that eventually Merri would be called home to the city that she had fallen in love, and which had fallen in love with her in return. She was so perfect, and he needed her to be there. he just needed for her to be home too, he needed her influence again. King didn't know what was going to happen if he didn't get her home, and he didn't know where she was, what she was going through. Sure, he wanted her back for selfish reasons, but he also wanted her back for everyone else who loved her, and mostly he wanted her back for her. He wanted her to feel like she was important, and that meant that he needed to bring her home, and it would, soon.


	18. Hey Merri I'm Sorry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few days ago As It Is released a song called "Hey Rachel" on Radio One and why it reminded me of Sonja I do not know, but this has been kind of percolating in my mind ever since. 
> 
> So the lyrics and the title are from "Hey Rachel" by As It Is

_**It's a shame this has taken me so long to say** _   
_**Hey Rachel I'm sorry** _   
_**I was younger and scared when you needed me** _   
_**I was selfish and stubborn, a terrible brother** _   
_**You don't have to forgive me** _   
_**Hey Rachel I'm sorry** _

Sonja was still trying to wrap her head around what Merri had just told them all, she'd tried to chase Chris, but had eventually just decided that it would be better to let him storm off, now she wanted to focus on her friend and what she'd just told them all. Coming back into the office it seemed like the impromptu meeting had broken up, so she went to find Merri, feeling like she needed to apologise. How had she not noticed that her friend had fallen that quickly. They'd all noticed her spiral before Russo, but nobody had actually stepped in to try and help her. They'd all been too selfish or stubborn or just thought that she could make it through on her own. Sonja was now learning that they had been wrong, so desperately wrong. "Hey, Merri. Wait up. I'm sorry for not trying to help you."

"There was nothing you could have done, Sonja." Merri replied simply, even managing to smile as she did. That wasn't actually making Sonja feel any better about what had happened. She wanted to say more, but it seemed like Merri wasn't actually going to let her say anything. Not at first anyway. Sonja had already determined that she was going to say it though. Merri seemed resigned to what had happened. "I'd been on a downward spiral longer than any of you knew me. Ever since Emily died. I'd struggled to move past that, and what happened on the Moultrie. The way I fell wasn't something that anyone would have been able to predict. Then Russo just destroyed what little faith in myself I'd managed to cling on too. He stole that and I didn't know how to handle that, it was why I didn't want you to come visit."

"I'm still sorry." Sonja fell into step beside her friend, at least she hoped they were still friends. Sonja wanted to explain now why she hadn't come forward then to help. "I knew you were struggling. We all did, but Pride convinced us that pushing you would force you further away from us. I was younger and scared and stubborn and maybe I was being a little selfish too. I thought that if you could do it I could too. I didn't want to shatter that illusion for myself by admitting that you weren't the superhero I'd built you up to be in my mind. I know it's ridiculous but... I did build you up like that and... you never have to forgive me if you can't. But I am sorry." There, she got it out. She was probably being selfish all over again, but she had said it all.

Merri just chuckled and that bolstered Sonja's spirits again. Clearly, no matter what, she didn't hold anything against them, even though she had more than the right to. "Sure, at the time it was awful, but my daughter is going to be one in a few days, my husband is bringing her in to meet you all. It wasn't easy but my life did get better when I faced my mental health issues. Every day is a battle, but it's a battle I win more than I lose." Merri then stopped and did something that surprise Sonja more than almost anything. She hugged her. Meredith Brody wasn't a hugger, so it was a surprise but it was welcome. "I forgive you for everything, you were a great friend, and... I'd like you to be one of Millie's godparents. We're having her Christened while we're here in New Orleans this week."

"I'd be honoured." Sonja smiled, choking up a little. In some ways it was still a shock to Sonja that Merri was married, and a mom. It was even more shocking that she wanted her daughter to have a connection to a city that seemed to cause pain to her. Yet they were clearly making it so that Millie would always have a place in New Orleans, the same as her mother always had that place. Sonja made a pledge to herself that she wasn't going to turn little Millie away if she ever came needing something. She would always be there when she was needed. Sonja hadn't been there for Merri the way she should have been. Making a promise to remedy that in the future if she ever could, it was all being put in the past. It was worth the distance now Merri seemed to be happy.


	19. Thoughts Written Down On Paper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today I've written super early because I've had this thought in my mind all day. I came across these lyrics in my Facebook history from my favouritest favourite band ever and I just saw Pride opening this letter and I had to write it. 
> 
> anyway, lyrics and title from "Truth of my Youth" by New Found Glory

**These are my thoughts written down on paper,**   
**It's my only saviour,**   
**From not saying what I want to say,**   
**These are the thoughts that are on my mind,**   
**Moments that haven't yet been defined,**   
**And I don't know if you could ever understand,**   
**These are the things I can't say when were alone.**

_Dear Dwayne,_

_I'm sorry that I'm writing these things in a letter, but I just don't know how to do this any other way. I've been thinking about this for as long as I've been gone and trying to say how I feel has never been my strong suit. I've always wanted to be more open, but it never seemed to happen for me. No matter what I tried it wouldn't come out right, and I never knew whether it was because I didn't trust people or because I didn't want to burden people. Either way, it was hard for me to actually sit and tell someone that I was thinking about them, or that I was struggling, falling... failing. I couldn't say them, even when I really wanted to, because admitting them meant admitting weakness, and I couldn't admit a weakness, never. I needed to feel I was strong._

_So I guess that's why I'm writing. I'm just getting all these thoughts onto paper and sending them to you. They are jumbled and muddled and maybe don't make very much sense, but they are the truth. Every single one of them. When I came to New Orleans I was broken and damaged already, I'd been through hell, you knew that as well as anyone else did, and that was part of what made everything more difficult. I didn't want anyone to know, but I knew you knew already. I hid so much of myself from you and Chris in those early months. In the months before I was actually comfortable enough to let you all see me. I tried to stay distant, even mysterious. I told Chris I didn't miss professional and personal. Those lines became so blurred when I was there, sometimes I wonder if that was why?_

_When there was no line in my mind anymore... things happened and I started to see people I met through work in a more social setting. It was how I ended up dating Sam... though we both know how that ended (not that James and I ever worked anything out...) It was how I ended up meeting others, how I met Russo... how I fell in love with the only person I absolutely couldn't have. That was part of the problem why I couldn't speak to you about so many things. Then, we got the case that brought us Emily's killer. The case where I think my downward spiral truly began, where I was proven right when I wanted to be wrong and where I learnt that someone I had trusted was why my sister was no longer here, why my family had broken down in a very spectacular fashion._

_But that case also brought us closer, oh so much closer. You came to check up on me, though you always covered it by visiting Loretta and the boys first. I knew though, believe me I knew. I appreciated it every time, and I started to look forward to them. When the General Matthews leak happened I knew that I was willing to do whatever I could to make sure that you were cleared. You may have skirted with the line from time to time, but you never outright broke it. Not once. That was how John Russo came into our lives. I was suspicious in DC, but his charm disarmed me and I'm not proud to admit it... I was lonely. I wanted to try and get over you, the person I absolutely couldn't be with even though I wanted to be. I thought it could get me over._

_Of course, that didn't work and now I'm worse than I've ever been and I don't know if you could understand. I don't know if anyone can understand. It's so hard for me to try and work things out while I'm missing the friends and family that I made in New Orleans. You were all truly my family and I wish I could be there. Most of all I wish I could be with you, because despite the time, the distance and all my trying, I'm still in love with you. I still hear your voice in my head when I'm struggling to move past a part of my past. These are the thoughts that have made me want to write to you, the things that have made me want to tell you how I feel and what I need. I thought it would help, maybe it has._

_Love, Merri._


	20. I Won't Regret The Years I Gave To You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, as everyone knows (I think) the new As It Is album came out yesterday... so expect the next few stories to be from that. This is one such inspiration. I should have written this yesterday... but I didn't. So I'm doing two tonight.
> 
> Title and lyrics from "Patchwork Love" by As It Is

_**I know you blame yourself for the pain I feel** _   
_**It has to hurt before it starts to heal** _   
_**I won't forget you, I won't regret** _   
_**Through the pain, the years I gave to you** _

Merri watched Pride as he waited for her to speak again, and she realised that she didn't know what to say. This was set up by mutual friends so they would speak and it wasn't entirely working. She felt too guilty, too broken. She did something cowardly, she ran away. She shouldn't have done, but she did. Running away the way she had was all that she had been able to do at that point.

"It's not your fault, King." She felt like she needed to tell him that. She needed to tell him that it wasn't his fault that she was hurt, it wasn't his fault that she was broken. That damage had been done long before she met him. The damage that had been done while she worked for him was really just the icing on the crap-tastic cake that was her life.

"I could have stopped you leaving, Merri. If only I'd called you more. If only I'd seen that you weren't able to cope on your own. I could have helped you. I could have made sure you were OK alone." Dwayne Pride was the sweetest man she's ever known, but it really wasn't his fault, and she wanted to make him see that. She wanted him to let her go. He needed to free himself.

"King... I would have left no matter what you did. I would have left if you'd been there in Florida with me. I was broken. I was emotionally bleeding. I needed to move past that and I didn't want to pull you down with me. I wanted you to be happy, I wanted you to be alive." She knew that that probably wasn't going to reassure him, but she had to try to help him.

"I miss you Merri, I need you." There was a plea in his voice, but she couldn't actually come home. not yet. That city was where she wanted to be, but if she went back she would fall back into those dangerous behaviours, and then she wasn't going to help anyone at all. She was just going to cause them all more pain. Make it harder for her to heal, and for them to help.

"I know you do. I miss you deeply too. But I have to heal now. I hit rock bottom, the pain was the worst it ever was and I couldn't get through it there." She stopped then smiled a little. "I will come home, but not yet. No matter the pain... I don't regret the years I gave to you. You were the happiest part of my life. You gave me a purpose, thank you."

"Even though you ended up worse when you went back to... wherever you are now... than you were when you came to me?" He looked even more broken up now, and she wished that she could stop him feeling like that. She wanted to make him feel better, but it didn't seem to be working. How did she tell him that she was OK, that she was healing, that she was getting through all this.

"I wasn't worse, I was saved. I'd met you." Merri smiled and put her hand on his cheek. "Maybe I regret some things that happened there, maybe I regret other parts of it... but I don't regret you Dwayne. I won't forget you, no matter where life takes me. You gave me something back, that day outside you bar after Emily's case. You gave me me." She took the opportunity to kiss his cheek softly.

His blush was more than what she'd expected, and it made her smile. He then pulled her closer and kissed her for real. Her brain paused a moment before she let the moment pull her in. Thinking about Dwayne Pride and all he meant to her told her this was the right thing at the right time. "Even if you're not ready to come home... I want to see you, now, in the future. Always."

"I think I can live with that, but I'm not going to promise that it will be easy." She took a breath and nodded. She was just going to let life go on with her, follow it along and not try to hold on too tightly. It was the important thing for her now. That she made sure that her future was as hopeful as her past hadn't been. She knew they both deserved that, and she wanted to deliver.


	21. Until I Return

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics and title from "Until I Return" by As It Is
> 
> This is random as hell.

_**You treated the damage that I let reside in my fragile mind** _

_**With stitches and bandages** _

_**You took the fault of my scars and you made it ours** _

_**I feel at home when you're lying next to me** _

_**But I fall apart when an ocean's in between** _

 

"How are you doing?" Well, wasn't that a loaded question, and Merri wasn't sure how to answer it. Not really. Pride was the only person who knew the truth about why she'd left New Orleans, and she knew that he'd keep it that way, but she was truly concerned that someone she didn't want to know would one day find out why and they would hunt her down and make her pay. It worried her.

But answering that question would give him far more information about how she was actually doing. Dwayne Pride had been most of the reason she had ever been strong enough to do this job, when she'd been failing he'd been the one who'd patched her up and made sure she knew that she was safe. That had been fine when he'd been there. Across the city or right there, sleeping next to her in bed.

Now, he was a thousand miles away and it wasn't as though he could be here overnight. He couldn't just kiss her problems away, couldn't take her to bed and show her who mattered the most. Couldn't prove to her that she was loved in the most basic way. That was how he'd been getting through to her over the last several months. What she wouldn't give to be back there curled up with him.

He had this ability that she loved, the ability to make all the scars that she carried, physically and mentally, into something that was positive for the two of them. Something that would help them develop and build their future together. Somehow he had always been able to overlook how broken she was, or he would believe that he could help her overcome all the issues that were facing her. It was a nice thought.

Over the months since she'd left, he'd called her often, they'd spoken and reminded each other how much they cared, how difficult it was to be without one another, but Merri really wasn't entirely sure that was always going to be enough, she could feel herself falling apart again. She could feel her mental health sliding back to how it had been the day she had first met him, how she'd been when she arrived.

"Honestly, I've been better. Falling apart, truthfully. " She was only falling apart because she was without him. If he was there, even if it was only temporarily, she was sure that she'd be able to take her control back. She'd be able to put her mind back together, stop the backslide that seemed to be happening. Somehow she had the feeling that he would actually know that. He always seemed to know when she hurt.

Admitting it to him was half of the battle, she knew that. Without that she would never be able to get things going, and she was certain that taking control of her emotions would also be a positive step. Even without Pride being there, she could hope that it would all become easier. That it would stop the falling into the depths of the depression she'd once felt, she couldn't make it through that again.

Pride knew that more than anyone else. He'd been the one she'd crawled to, the one who had woken him up in the middle of the night when she'd considered doing something stupid. He was the one who she had depended on when the world seemed black, and to Merri he was the one who had pulled her through the worst of it. Home was where he happened to be, she had to admit that.

"Merri, open the door." He said suddenly, and given her training over the years she just followed his instructions, walking to the door of her safehouse and looking out, expecting her protection to be visible, but they weren't. Then out of the darkness she say the person she needed most. "They are down the hall, I showed my creds." He smiled and opened his arms, that comforting, happy place where Merri knew she was safe.

She held onto him as he got them in, calling to her protection to move back to the door. Pride had thought about her comfort, knowing that she would be emotional when she saw him and that she wouldn't want anyone to see her. It was things like that that prove he was right for her. "I love you." She admitted, the first time, and when he just smiled back she knew she was home.


	22. Curtains Close

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just love the imagery in these lyrics... and apparently this is what wrote for them
> 
> Title and lyrics from "Curtains Close" by As It Is

_**Looking for an answer, the house lights rise** _  
_**Wishing for an ending that's not goodbye** _  
_**We watch the curtains close on all we've known** _  
_**It doesn't always matter how hard we tried** _  
_**Sometimes the only ending is just goodnight** _  
_**We watch the curtains close on all we've known** _

It was the end of an era and she wasn't really sure what they were going to do now. What was she to think when it came to looking around and accepting that they weren't going to be coming back here in the morning. The house had been sold, a new building having been rebuilt specifically for them a little further along in the Quarter. "Are we really saying goodbye to this place. Our home?"

"We built the new place, we paid for it. It would be bad form if we didn't live there." She laughed a little, wrapping an arm around his back as they looked at the little house they'd just sold. It had been the first place they'd bought together, but now they needed something more. With two children on the way the house they'd built was where they should be, but it didn't feel like home.

"I know, and it's nearer my office, but when we decided to live together we bought this place because we couldn't live next to Loretta. Now it's just..." King trailed off and she nodded again, understanding what he meant. This was the symbol of how they'd made the decision to start a life together. Be together, start a family. Merri had never been sure that was what she wanted, but she did because of him.

"Yeah, but we're going to have new firsts in a home we rebuilt specially for us. It is exactly what we need now, and I love you more every time we think about it." She smiled and pulled his hand further around to settle on one side of her bump. Knowing that their lives were really just beginning. "I wish we didn't have to say goodbye to this place, but sometimes the end is goodbye."

"When did you get so wise?" King teased, patting than van that had the last of their things in and Chris sat behind the wheel. "Are you going to meet me at the new place?" He asked, reminding Merri that she didn't work with them anymore, she had to go and do her own job. When she went home tonight it would be to somewhere that wasn't going to feel right, but it would soon.

"Yeah. I promise. I'll be there tonight." She kissed him softly then stood on the sidewalk as she waved them away. The house that she'd lived in for the last year was no longer home, but she couldn't help taking the opportunity to take one last walk around before she said goodbye to the place. If only it wasn't so small, if only they could have done something so their growing family could stay here.

As she walked through the living room she remembered all the things that had happened there. How they had gotten a good deal on it as there had been a murder there, and how they had sold it to friends in law enforcement where that wasn't an issue. She could see the memories she and King had made. Him proposing in the middle of the room, them deciding to have children by the open windows.

Every part of the house had a new memory, some of them happy, some of them not. She rummaged in her bag and did one last thing. Finding some paper she stopped and wrote a letter to the couple who were taking the house over from them. She knew that it was going to be hard for them to walk away, only come back her to visit. She hoped it made the new owners happy.

Pouring her heart into the letter she smiled a little remembering what it was that had gotten her into so much trouble at times, and she knew that there were more things that she would never remember, or that would hit her by surprise in months to come. She had been truly happy here, for the first time in many years, and that was something that she just couldn't thank a house for helping with.

"Chris and Sonja, the truth is that leaving this house is the hardest thing I've done in a very long time. This was the perfect home for us to start our lives in, and with every day we spent here our love grew stronger and we knew more what was right for us. I hope that this house can bring you the same joy it did us. Good luck, we love you as always. Merri."


	23. The Coast Is Where Home Is

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This song just... it screamed a little Pride angst to me and, as always, Leo and Galia were enablers and told me to do the thing.
> 
> Title and lyrics from "The Coast Is Where Home Is" by As It Is

_**Years pass with these streets losing what I keep** _   
_**I know, I know the coast is where home is** _   
_**Romance for past tense, rose-tinted sunsets** _   
_**I know, I know the coast is where home is** _

Dwayne Pride had always been willing to do whatever was asked of him, even when it had ended up causing him a great deal of personal pain. He didn't really care what happened, but he knew that it wasn't going to be easy to live through. He'd known that when he'd accepted this assignment all those years ago. It had been five years since he'd left New Orleans, left his team, his daughter and whatever relationship he'd begun with Merri. He had accepted that this was something that had needed to happen, and that he had really been the only fit for the job, but he missed everything that had been part of that amazing city being his home. It was his birthplace, where he'd been raised, where he'd raised his own family. Where heartbreak had hit him and where he'd found love again. Where he'd watched his daughter blossom into a beautiful young woman. That was all in the past now though, it was all far in his past.

This city wasn't home. This city was nothing like New Orleans, the years were passing as he walked up and down these streets and he knew very little about what was happening back home. He had gotten a little news. What was happening with his agents, his daughter was married now, thinking about her own family. The one person he heard from least was Merri, but he didn't entirely blame her. When she'd disappeared it had only been for a few months, and she'd eventually come back and told him that he was the only reason. From all the letters she was still in New Orleans, working as a liaison for the NOPD, but Dwayne wasn't always sure that she was happy. He knew that Laurel wasn't happy. Her letters were becoming less frequent too... but she needed to move on with her life. Just like he hoped that everyone else was moving on with theirs too.

For him, nothing was the same, he'd only brought a few things from his home, and they were slowly being lost or broken. The pictures fading in the almost constant sunlight. He had to be comforted that he still lived on the banks of a river. It wasn't the Mississippi, and it wasn't home, but being on a river coast made him feel like he could look out across it and imagine that he was looking at the French Quarter, lit up for the Christmas celebrations that he'd left in the middle of. He could picture Merri, Laurel, Loretta... all of them. He could see them so clearly in his mind and he hated that he'd left even more every time they all popped into his mind. he couldn't keep going without knowing about them all indefinitely. Especially when the word "babies" had started showing up in the letters. Nobody had told him to whom the babies belonged, but it really showed him that he was missing far too much of their lives.

Now, he honestly didn't even know what this case was still about, after this long he assumed he'd either have gotten a break or been pulled out, but it didn't seem that way. He was beginning to feel bitter about it. He had never wanted to be a long-term agent, he'd never planned on life to take him away from anywhere near as long as this. Before NCIS he'd been with JPSO and that had kept him in New Orleans. He'd never planned on being anywhere else, especially not after Laurel had been born after all the attempts, how hard it was for them to have her at all. Pride had needed to stay there for her, and now she might have her own children that he didn't even know about. He could be a grandfather, and he wouldn't know.

The only comfort he had was that the coast was where he called home, and with a little imagination he could imagine that all his friends, his family, were right there with him, even if that was the furthest thing from the truth he'd ever tried to convince himself of. This was what life was for him. Constantly trying to convince himself of the lies, just to keep going. Maybe it was time that he admitted that this wasn't enough, that he needed to pull himself out, because he was willing to risk his cover now if it meant he was done. It was time for him to go home.


	24. City Lights That Paint The Waves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is related to yesterday's, but an outsider's look on it. So enjoy.
> 
> Again, title and lyrics from "The Coast Is Where Home Is" by As It Is

_**Long live forgotten days** _   
_**The city lights that paint the waves** _   
_**The sea air inside my lungs** _   
_**The memories we made back then** _   
_**Forever splintered in my skin** _

Sonja knew that there was little she could do or say that would make any of this any easier. For five years she'd tried to do that, for both Merri and Chris, and it had largely been a failure. Ever since King left her friends had been suffering. She knew why Chris was suffering, but it wasn't until some time later that Merri finally confided in her that she and King had finally made moves.

Now they were here babysitting King's grandchildren while Laurel was at work, Merri having become a de-facto grandparent for the little girls, but Sonja knew that they didn't really comfort her friend in the worst of it. Sonja hadn't realised how serious Merri had been about King until she'd recognised how withdrawn she was becoming. Chris was far easier to comfort, he would at least open up. Sometimes Merri was all but impossible to help.

Those days when they were a team seemed so long ago. Merri was still with them, but in name alone, as she was the NOPD liaison and could be yanked back to police duty any time. This old days seemed so simple in comparison to everything they had here. It was so much harder without having King to fall back on. He'd just always seemed to know what was needed in any situation they faced.

Considering that she and King were the ones who were born and raised in New Orleans... Sonja could understand how hard it would be for him to be away from here so long. There was nowhere quite like home, the light on the water, the smell of the river, that was home. Everything bandied together to make it work and it wasn't something that could be replicated. Not in the US and definitely not abroad.

"It's his birthday this week." Merri said absently as she watched the girls running around the grass, playing some game that Sonja didn't understand, and for a moment Sonja had to remind herself that they weren't talking about someone who was dead. The flatness in Merri's voice when she spoke sounded like she'd given up any hope of seeing him again. It was Sonja's job to try and restore her faith that he'd come home.

How to do that was something that Sonja was less prepared for. She'd only known King for a couple of years when he was pulled away, and while she knew Laurel and the rest of the team well now, King was almost a myth that others spoke about and she pretended she remembered. by this point he'd been gone almost twice as long as Merri had known him too. Not that she would mention that.

This situation was something that she hated being in, but they couldn't really change anything, not now anyway. It was years past, and even if he came home right then how would they know he would be the same person. After such a long time undercover, Sonja couldn't imagine him coming home being the man they'd all known. It wasn't what she wanted to think about, but she knew they needed to think about that.

It was going to be her job to make sure that everyone remembered what being undercover for so long would do, and she was always going to make sure that her friends came first. King had been a friend once, but she felt no loyalty to him any longer. Her loyalty rested with the people she say every day. Really, she wanted him to come home for them. For Chris and Laurel and especially Merri.

So she had to keep thinking about what Merri should do to mark his birthday, even if he never knew that she did it. he probably wouldn't ever know, because it was too hard and too far away for him to have any idea what was really going on here. She knew that Merri had sent repeated requests to know where he'd been assigned and got nothing back, but they could write, that was something.

"Send him another letter, let him know you're thinking about him. I'm sure he misses you too, Merri." She wasn't actually sure of that at all, but it seemed like the right thing to say. Hand on her heart, Sonja believed that he would, because she was fairly sure that anyone would miss Merri, so they'd keep up the hope that their friend was going to come home. Until then, they just had to wait.


	25. Selfish and Stubborn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm not sure where this came from... but Emily Brody was talking and she felt like she needed to say this so... here we go...
> 
> Title and lyrics from "Hey Rachel" by As It Is

_**I always knew that I was responsible to guide you through** _   
_**But I was blind when looking out for you** _   
_**I was self-absorbed, but I try not to be anymore** _   
_**I put your diary back in your drawer** _   
_**It's a shame this has taken me so long to say** _

Emily hadn't often thought back to her years in high school, and only know that she was an adult did she realise exactly how much of an asshole she could have been back then. She was a typical teenage girl, she'd wanted to be popular, but she hadn't wanted to leave Merri behind so she'd pushed her twin into things she didn't want to do and wasn't interested in. Merri had always been into more dangerous things. She'd liked climbing trees, playing soccer and field hockey. Getting dirty with all the boys. Things that Emily had hated, but since Merri had always been so quiet and shy, Emily often railroaded her and dragged her alone to what she wanted to do. Looking back, the thing that surprised Emily the most was that Merri had never complained, she'd actually always tried to seem like she was enjoying herself. She wasn't though.

Sitting with Merri's diary from 10th grade, Emily couldn't help but regret everything from back then. She knew that both Merri and James were away on assignments, so she picked up the phone to leave a voicemail. No matter how long it had been, she wanted to apologise for what had gone on back then. They were the best of friends now, but Emily felt guilty. Hearing her twins voice on the voice mail she just smiled and shook her head at James' input on it then spoke. "Hey Messie, so it's August 26th and I know you're not gonna be back for a couple of months but still, I felt like I needed to call you and I just want you to listen to this message and you can talk it over with me when we see each other when you're home. because you know mom'll throw a party."

She paused for a moment, trying not to think about the 'Welcome home' bash that Olivia Brody would hold for her eldest daughter when she made it home from her assignment. "I was just thinking about all that time in high school, all the crap I used to do to you and just. I want to say sorry. I was always so opposite you and I think back then we wanted to be part of each other's lives but we didn't know how. When you needed me, after all that shit happened with Michael, I was younger than you and I was scared what everyone was going to say and I just wasn't what I should have been for you. Not when I think of how awesome you always were to me. You always put me first and you never complained that it wasn't fair. I wish I said more."

"What started this was... I found your diary from that year. I forgot how much you had felt for Michael. How he had made you feel like you were the priority, and of course I couldn't accept that. I had had to ruin it for you because I selfish. I liked to be the centre of attention and I never knew how to handle it when I wasn't." Emily wasn't going to pretend that Merri had had any blame for what had happened then. She hadn't, it had all been Emily and she was sorry about that. Olivia had been so angry about it for such a long time too. "I was also too stubborn to admit back then that it was all about me. You needed me so much and I was such a terrible sister. I laughed at you, joined in with the horrible things said about you."

"You don't have to forgive me for any of that. I'm sure that it had it's place in why you don't trust people now, though with your job that is probably a bonus, it was still wrong for me to do. It's a shame it's taken me until I was 29 to realise how much of an asshole I was. I should have said all of this a long, long time ago but... now I suppose we need to say these things. Don't we. You're my big sister, my best friend, and I really can't wait for you to get home. We have two weddings to plan. See you soon, I love you." She smiled then put the phone down. There was no point mentioning the issues she was having with work, there would be nothing Merri could do anyway. She just looked forward to the day Merri was home.

_**Hey Rachel, I'm sorry** _   
_**I was younger and scared when you needed me** _   
_**I was selfish and stubborn, a terrible brother** _   
_**You don't have to forgive me** _   
_**Hey Rachel, I'm sorry** _


	26. Stitches and Bandages

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one fits in with my fic "Save Me A Spark" after Merri returns to New Orleans with her son.
> 
> Title and lyrics from "Until I Return" by As It Is

_**You treated the damage** _   
_**That I let reside in my fragility mind** _   
_**With stitches and bandages** _   
_**You took my scars and made it ours** _

"Meredith, this is a pleasant surprise." Loretta smiled as Merri stood on the doorstep, and she wasn't sure if this was going to be an imposition. She was basically showing up after 2 years and asking if her old house was still available. She had plenty of funds available so she could stay in the hotel indefinitely if there was a tenant in the house, but she just needed to try. She couldn't honestly imagine living anywhere else in the city, not anymore. "Dwayne called and said that you were in the city, I wasn't sure if we'd be seeing you or if you'd only be seeing him?" So, King hadn't told his friend why she was back in New Orleans, or that she was back her permanently. Instead of saying anything she just stepped aside to where Bevan was stood slightly behind her. Loretta wouldn't need telling about him.

"This is Bevan Brody, my son." She smiled, then when Bevan hid his face in her legs she bent down to pick him up and let Loretta get a better look at him. Given that he was meeting a lot of new people the last couple of days Merri didn't blame the toddler for being a little shy, but she needed to get through this anyway. "This is mommy and daddy's friend, your aunty Loretta." Merri then nodded to Loretta. "I promise I'll tell you the story, but can we come in, and is my house available, by any chance?" She couldn't help but think of the guest house as being her house. This was where she felt most at home, and she desperately wanted to still live there. "And yes, King is his father. That last night I was here before I went to Florida ended with this kid."

"Of course, come in." Loretta smiled and then stepped back, allowing Merri past as Bevan lifted his head from her shoulder and started looking around the building. Merri hoped that he would be happier here than he had been at her parent's places. He had not liked being around his grandparents. As soon as they were settled, with a little encouragement from Merri, Bevan was happy to go and sit with Loretta, and the older woman looked on him with a wide smile. "He looks just like baby pictures I've seen of Dwayne, is he a well behaved child?" Loretta didn't seem to care too much about why she'd been gone for so long, and that was the woman she knew. She'd let Merri tell the story in her own time. Which was just what Merri had needed. "Given he's your son too, I imagine he can be a challenge."

"Oh like you wouldn't imagine, he definitely takes after his aunt Emily at times." Merri smiled softly, the little blond curls her son sported being so adorable in the sunlight. Slowly, Merri explained all that she'd been through over the last two years, and Loretta just sat quietly, making sure that Bevan was entertained while Merri spoke. She was thankful for that, and even more thankful that Loretta's ingrained skill with children kept Bevan as quiet as it did. She was so good with children, of course she wouldn't have a problem. When she was done she took a deep breath and smiled again, thinking of the night before. "So yesterday we came home, and I got to see the man I love for the first time in almost two years, and he didn't blame me for the things that I had to do over the time we were apart."

"Dwayne would just be happy you were home, he missed you deeply, Merri. I'm sure he's also thrilled to know he had another child. he always wanted more, but Linda was happy with just Laurel." That was actually an understatement for King's reaction, and Merri had been glad that he'd spent the night before with them both at their hotel, only leaving this morning because he needed to work. Loretta had been the first woman to help her through the things that haunted her, and that was why she was the second person Merri had seen on her return. Loretta had seen the worst of Merri, and had still made her feel like she was home, and like she had people that she could depend on. That was exactly what she needed now, and she needed to be home, because it was the only place she could start to heal.


	27. More Times Than I'd Like

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this ended up being something I thought up last night, though there is a twist I didn't expect. I bought a new laptop and I keep messing up lol!!!
> 
> Title and lyrics from "Until I Return" by As It Is

_**You can't keep me sane when I'm out of sight** _   
_**I'll still lose my way from time to time** _   
_**'Cause you saved my life more times than I'd like** _   
_**I promise I'll fight but I can't promise that I'll be fine** _

Brody was, once again, stuck in a terrible situation. Yet, as had happened more times than she could count, the one person she loved to see the most had turned up in the nick of time to rescue her from the people who might be trying to hurt her. Of course, this time the person who was trying to hurt her was herself, and she couldn't seem to stop herself. How did he always know when she needed him, and more than that, how did he always know where to find her. "I thought I was going to be alone here. I thought I might have finally found somewhere that you couldn't find me. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking." That was the long and short of it right now. She didn't actually want to admit that she was happy to see him. That would mean she needed help.

"Can't let you kill yourself, not when I still need you." That was really the thing that she needed to start admitting. Pride saved her partly for selfish reasons, he wanted his best agent, his partner, to be fine. He knew how far she was falling, and he was trying to help her, but she kept pushing him away. She wasn't even sure now why she kept pushing him away. "Why don't you try telling me about it. You know I only want to help you, Merri." She did know that, and she also knew that he would be the person who understood her the best in the entire world, especially in a situation like this. For some reason her brain always froze when she went to tell him. This time was going to be different, she was going to talk because she needed to let it all out now.

"I can't move on, Dwayne. I can't stop thinking about James and about how he'd be so mad at me for still being torn up about it after a year. He knew this was how his job could go, and I knew that it could too." She had been just recovering from Emily and Russo when she'd been told about James, and she wasn't sure how to handle that. She wasn't even sure if anyone in the office but King knew that he'd died. "We weren't even a couple anymore, he wanted me to be with the person I truly loved. You. But he was still this huge part of my life and the idea that I won't ever see him again keeps running through my head." She sighed again then looked to the man in the car. "Why do you keep saving my life, what keeps bringing you back?"

King just wrapped his arms around her and kissed her tenderly before pulling her against his chest. This was her safe space, and she knew that he wouldn't be hurt by her questions, he knew her well enough to know she was more asking about her own mental health than anything about him. When he spoke she heard it reverberate in his chest, and that again just made her feel safe. "I save you because I can't not. I need you and I wouldn't be able to move on if I lost you. I know that you miss James, and I know that he was this enormously important person to you, but you should still think about everything that he would want you to do. That Emily would want you to do too. They wouldn't want you to throw your life away just because they aren't here with you anymore."

Of course, he was right, but there was a part of her mind that told her she wasn't ever going to be entirely over this. She wanted to be better, but she couldn't ever promise that. "I will try to keep all of that in mind. I'll try to be better and more in control. But serious Dwayne... you have saved my life more times than I can count, and definitely more times than I'd like to admit to." She smiled still cuddled up to him across the car and took another deeper breath. "I can't ever promise that I'll be fine, that I'll be healthy and normal like Linda or anyone else you could be with. But I will try, and I'll talk to James' family too. Maybe that'll help." Merri would get there, wanted to be there for Dwayne, and right now that was something she couldn't be.


	28. Heart's Still Filled With Dread

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure if I used these lyrics, I don't much care if I have because they just mean so much to me. This has minor character death in it.
> 
> Title and lyrics from "Austen" by As It Is

_**You've been claimed by your suffering** _   
_**Sinking deeper in your pain** _   
_**If you made a recovery** _   
_**Would you ever be the same** _   
_**You fear the silence so I keep the words coming** _   
_**You won't remember them when all the clock's stop running** _   
_**We might expect it but my heart's still filled with dread** _   
_**And words I never said** _

They'd been coming to this hospital room now every day for 6 months, but that wasn't seeming to actually do anything at all. It definitely wasn't doing anything that could be construed as helpful. At least not for the woman laid in the bed. She was as comatose now as she'd been the day of the attack, and no matter what was done now, there wasn't going to be any easy way to change this. Merri knew that she'd been claimed by the injuries, that had happened months ago. They all knew that even King had accepted that. Though he hadn't left Laurel's side since she'd come in here, he had wanted to take her off life support weeks ago. Linda had refused, and given the position, they were in they needed to agree before the hospital could legally withdraw treatment. It was killing King, watching his daughter like this.

Even if, by some miracle, Laurel made it through this, she wouldn't be the young woman they'd all spoken to last. The damage that had been done was extreme, and there was a good chance that even if they did remove the treatment, Laurel would be too far gone, and her brain may be incapable of telling the body to die. Not that any of them wanted to accept that that might happen right now. She was here more than anyone but King, she hadn't seen Linda once, but she'd been there every day. Bringing King food, sitting holding Laurel's hand while he ate, then holding his hand until he agreed to sleep in the cot in the corner of Laurel's room. He refused to leave, and nobody had the heart to try and force him to go. Not that anyone but Merri had convinced him to leave the room.

"I can't lose her, Merri." Pride said suddenly as she closed the door, and Merri knew that he was trying to let go, needing her to talk to him, help him reason through his emotions about this. She'd never had this with Emily. She'd been alive then she hadn't been. Merri had never lost anyone else close, so she couldn't really sympathise, but she would try her hardest. That was part of being a partner. She just stepped over to the bed and kissed the top of his head, wrapping his arms around her he leant forward and started to cry into her stomach. She stroked his hair softly as he cried, worrying more about him than she could ever explain, but she knew that there was absolutely nothing that she could do to help right now other than being here. Keeping hold of him she just hated this situation.

How was it ever fair that a woman as young and vibrant as Laurel be taken the way that she was being. She just knew that King needed the strength to see Laurel the way that she was right now. It wasn't easy seeing a friend like that, and as Merri had no children she couldn't really even begin to imagine how it felt to be watching your child in this situation. She knew how it felt to watch the man you loved dealing with it, though, and she was so afraid of how this was going to change him. "Did Linda agree to turn the machine off?" She had to ask, though she wasn't sure that she wanted to know. Given the pain radiating from King, she guessed that the time was approaching, and she'd be wherever King wanted her to be. His wishes were her priority right now.

At the gently nod against her midriff, Merri said a silent prayer, hoping that Emily would look after Laurel in whatever afterlife actually did exist. She didn't like the idea of there being nothing after death, but she didn't like the idea of Laurel being alone either, so believing that Emily would hear her and look out for the newest member of their family to leave them so early. Merri was going to make it her goal to pull King through this so that she wouldn't be having to make the request again in a few months. "I'll stay with you, Dwayne. Wherever you need me to be, that's where I'll wait." She whispered then kissed the top of his head again, trying to protect him. It was time for Laurel to sleep, and the effect on all of them was going to be more than they could ever expect.

_**Give me strength to see you weak** _   
_**'Cause I can't bear to let you leave** _   
_**I know you're tired but please don't sleep** _   
_**'Cause I can't bear to let you leave** _


	29. What Brother?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is another one set in my "Save Me A Spark" fic-verse. I just have a lot of inspiration for this fic still.

Dwayne had been nervous about this moment, but thankfully it seemed like the toddler by his side wasn't at all concerned. He was instead enjoying jumping in the puddle more, and Dwayne couldn't help but smile about the job that Merri had done raising him on her own up until this point. This was going to be important though, and Dwayne know how she'd react. "Hey, come here bud, you don't get to run away."

He laughed, scooping Bevan up into his arms as there was finally an answer to his incessant knocking. Laurel, it seemed, was struck dumb when she opened the door. Dwayne just smiled a little then nodded past her down the corridor to her living room. "Dad, who's the toddler. Not that I don't appreciate the visit..." Laurel trailed off and Dwayne had to think of how to phrase this, though it was a little obvious.

"This is your little brother, Bevan." He didn't try to make it sound better than it was, and after only two weeks it was still a surprise to him sometimes when he woke up and thought about the fact that, not only was the woman he loved home, but they had created a son and he was getting to help raise him from now on. It was terrifying, but he had always wanted more children.

"What do you mean brother? I don't have a brother." Laurel was clearly momentarily in denial about the fact that Bevan Brody was actually her younger sibling, after another couple of seconds while the toddler just looked around the room Laurel sighed and shook her head. "I can't really deny it, he looks just like all your baby pictures. Who's his mom?" She knew about his love for Merri, but this was still a surprise.

"Merri... Merri Brody." Admitting that a woman who had technically been his employee the last time they'd been in the same building was the mother of his son was hard. "She came home two weeks ago with Bevan. Told me all about what happened, and that's how I knew I needed her. She wasn't as receptive." He'd been a little hurt when she'd turned him down, but he understood more when she'd explained her fears.

Laurel looked horrified for a moment, actually a facial expression similar to the one Merri had worn when he'd brought this up with her. "What did you ask her? Dad she just disappeared and left you. Suddenly it's two years later and I have a brother." The way Laurel said it did make it sound off the wall, but he couldn't turn his back on her, not right now. "Are you even certain he's yours?"

"You said it yourself, he looks just like me. I believe her when she said there were only two possibilities, and the other is ruled out by DNA." Dwayne didn't need a test, he didn't need paper. He could see it in the little boy who was still exploring the room carefully. The dark eyes of his mother, the rest of him being all Pride. It was easy to accept that all this was true.

"Did you ask her to marry you, because if you did you're officially insane and you need to speak to someone. She was missing!" Laurel exclaimed, and Bevan toppled over and started to cry. Dwayne picked him up and soothed him gently before he looked to Laurel while she clearly thought of a way to end what she'd been saying. "You can't trust after that, she's not the person she was when she left here."

"Maybe she's not, but you know what... I still love her. You knew how I felt when she left, how I fell apart. She's home, and I want to try and make this work. For me and her, and for our son. I fought for your mom, I'll fight for his too." Thing hadn't ended well with Linda and he still regretted that, he wanted Bevan to grow up knowing his parents loved each other.

"If you're sure, just take it slowly. I don't want to have to help you through losing her again." Laurel said then took her brother from his arms. "I guess I have to be a big sister now and try and teach you all the ways to get what you want from our dad." She said quietly, and Dwayne just smiled at the sight in front of him. He was sure they's make it work.


	30. Come On Back Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know, I've a day missing I'm hoping to post two tomorrow to make up for the missing day. This one became far feelsier than I anticipated.

It had been far too long since he'd seen the one person who he felt could help him through his current crisis, and he knew now that he needed to go find her. There was a lot he could have done, maybe should have done, so that this wouldn't happen but that wasn't the way it had gone. Now he needed to change, so he'd gotten in his care and his course was set north.

Arriving in the little town where the address was located he looked around, knowing all along that she'd come from a family with more money than he probably would have dreamt of when he was young. Now though, he knew this was her refuge, her way to escape. He eventually parked outside the address and just walked to the door, hoping she was here. "Is Meredith Brody here?" He asked the moment the door opened.

"Agent Pride?" He heard a second later, and he tried to smile when he saw Olivia Brody coming up behind the man he assumed was Merri's father. "This is the man she talks about all the time Paul. Maybe he can get through to her." It was clear from Paul Brody's demeanour that he wasn't quite as sure of his wife's assertion as she appeared to be, and now King was a lot more worried.

"What if he makes it worse, Livi. We only just got her back." He said under his breath, but a creak nearby and the sudden change in both the Brody's told him that Merri had come to see what all the discussions were about. "Messie, Agent Pride is here. You want to see him?" King understood Paul's behaviour. He was a father too and if he was worried about Laurel he'd be just as protective.

"It's OK, dad. Thanks." He heard that soft, reassuring voice for the first time in months and he already felt like a weight had lifted off of him. That's all it took when he was around her, a few words and one look. Everyone in New Orleans knew she affected him differently, they just didn't know how much. "Come in, Dwayne, I guess we do need to talk." He just nodded, following her straight through.

He'd never really been the one who was led anywhere, but he wasn't going to push, he hadn't even been sure she'd see him. She took him up the stairs and through to the room he assumed was hers before she sat down in the window seat and nodded to him. "I needed to come see you, Merri. It's been too long, there are too many things left unsaid... And I still need you desperately."

"I'm sorry... I did it like this." She whispered quietly, he took the seat beside her just so she didn't have to raise her voice. He was worried about her, he didn't care why she did anything, he just couldn't stand to lose her. "When I left New Orleans that night, I already knew I wasn't going to be coming back. I needed to escape, and there was nowhere there I could focus on it."

"I don't... understand." He admitted, reaching out and taking the hand she was picking at gently in his. A second later she slid her fingers between his and squeezed it gently. "I don't understand but I know that we're poorer without you, and you're poorer without us. You don't even have to come back to NCIS, hell work with Buckley in the bar. Just please, Merri, come on back home. Come home with me, tomorrow."

"You want me to come with you that badly?" He just nodded to that, squeezing her hand again. He knew she'd left the job, knew she couldn't handle that anymore and he could accept it... but he couldn't leave without trying to get her back. "I never... wanted to leave the city. But I thought you would convince me to stay an agent, but I can't do that anymore. I can't deal with the pain."

"Then don't do that, just come live there. Work in the bar, be an accountant, stay home all day and paint or write or become a translator." Merri had more talents than she ever gave herself credit for. There was always something she could do. "I don't care what you do, I just need you." She was the one person he couldn't live without, and if this brought her home, he'd done the right thing.


	31. Even When It's Dark Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm working on catching up with these, I got tired and out of it so I barely wrote the last couple of days. I'm hoping to catch up tonight or tomorrow.  
> Title stolen from "City Lights" by The Big Time (if you ship Prody you have to listen to that song)

King had forgotten how hard it was to reason with a toddler, and it seemed even harder when they barely knew you. Bevan was a happy little guy, and he was one of the most patient babies King had ever seen, but that didn't seem to count right now. "Hey, come on little man. Let mommy get some sleep, huh?" Merri had mentioned earlier that their son was teething, and that she hadn't had a good night's sleep in days. He'd told her to get comfortable while he took Bevan to see what he could make them for dinner, and now she was fast asleep on the sofa. It had been a long time since he'd been left alone with a child, but he was determined to make sure that his son was quiet and comfortable while Merri actually got some sleep. He knew she needed it desperately right now.

"Let's see what we've got for you to eat, shall we. You know your momma can't cook, but your daddy... He's a great cook. I hope she told you that." There were actually a lot of things that King hoped Merri had told their son in the time before he'd met him, not least of which was the thought about his cooking. Picking Bevan up, he headed through to the kitchen and grabbed one of the teething rings off the side, hoping that would give the toddler at least a little relief. In the two weeks since Merri had returned and they had started to see what relationship they could recover from the ashes of her undercover stint, he wasn't sure she'd slept a full night, and most of that was down to having a toddler and being all on her own with him for such a very long time.

He remembered the list of foods that Merri said she'd tried Bevan on, and he decided to stick to a classic with his own twist, talking the little one through what he was doing as he made it. He remembered all the times he'd done this with Laurel when she'd been small, though she had rarely shown any interest in it. Bevan seemed to be far more interested in the process, and he'd look between the pan and King as they cooked. It actually felt a little like he was managing to pass down his wisdom to his son, though he wasn't really willing to put his money on it just yet. He was having a lot more fun talking his son through the intricacies of cooking than he ever would have thought, and he was really just overjoyed that, somehow, he'd finally gotten the second child he'd always wanted.

Turning around after he'd served up a bowl of his special, slightly spicy, mac and cheese he turned to see Merri stood in the doorway. He had no idea how long she'd been stood watching them, but he wasn't really all that sorry. "Is daddy making you a nice dinner?" She eventually smiled, walking over and looking in the pan, which still had enough for the two of them to eat as well. He had made something simple so that she could microwave it and even she couldn't mess up. He had hoped that she'd stay asleep, but obviously not. At the look he gave her she just shrugged at him and started getting a bowl for herself. "I couldn't stay asleep, it was suddenly too quiet. Stay and have a bowl with us, and maybe spend the night. I'd like that, and I think Bevan would really like that."

"Alright, I think I can do that." He smiled softly, as Merri had been the one with the rules about him not staying overnight until she was ready. He'd been ready the minute she came back, but he knew that she wasn't. She had been through so much, and he wished that she'd been able to tell him all about it, but she hadn't been. As it was now he was hopefully going to get to enjoy the rest of his life with his son and with the woman he had fallen in love with over the course of the two years she'd worked for him. He'd wanted her back every second that she'd been gone, and now she was home with him this was the start of a new chapter for them both. Even if it took years, he knew she was home, and that was all he needed.


	32. In Unfamiliar, Sombre Surroundings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Number 2 for tonight, lyrics and title from "Okay" by As It Is

__**And how foreign it felt  
When I opened my mouth  
And heard the truth come out**

For the last year she'd been trying to convince herself that she wasn't slowly breaking down. Ever since she'd started getting those pictures, the one's that had lead her to the man who had killed Emily, she'd felt her mental health slipping in a way she hadn't in many years. The last time she'd had this little control had been straight after she'd gotten back from the Moultrie, right when she'd just lost her sister.

Now she didn't have that hanging over her, thought the grief had never faded, instead she had everything else that she'd seen and done in the thirteen years since she'd become an agent, and maybe this brush with PTSD was trying to show her that it was a bad plan for her to keep pursuing this. Maybe she would be better suited to a career where she wasn't dealing with the aftermath of horrific crimes.

In reality though, she couldn't think of anything else that she would be suited for. Nothing legal, anyway. She could make a good living photographing abandoned building if she started marketing her urban exploring skills, but other than that she was geared toward working in law enforcement. She'd always wanted to be here, so it was beginning to weigh on her that the dream career had almost pushed her off the edge more than once.

She didn't need to look far to see the proof of it, it was echoed all around her in these once familiar surroundings. They felt new, like she was disconnected from the person that she used to be when she was here before. Now she was looking at it she knew that was ridiculous and probably a sign of a bigger problem, one that she couldn't run away from. She needed to start getting help.

Telling anyone that she needed the help was much harder than she'd expected, and she just hadn't been able to get the words out when she'd started. Then she'd just blurted that she wasn't okay, that she kept thinking about how she could hurt herself. The response to that admission had been swift, and this morning she'd been driven here and sat down, waiting to speak to a trauma specialist who dealt exclusively in PTSD.

Merri was thankful that she'd been taken so seriously, but at first it was still hard to open up, she stumbled more than once, then all of a sudden the truth had just tumbled from her lips unchallenged and unthought. That had opened floodgates that she hadn't even known she'd been maintaining, and there were fears and worries dating back to high school, so many things that she and Emily had been through back then.

Hearing the truth falling out of her mouth was something new for her, as she hadn't told the truth about how she was feeling in over a decade. She'd always compartmentalised the pain she was feeling, but the walls she'd built to protect herself had been being slowly dismantled by the friends she'd made here. The upside to that was that she knew that they'd be right there when she needed someone to catch her.

More surprising was that the woman Merri was finally unloading to was a total stranger, someone she'd met only 30 minutes earlier, and that was how she realised that she'd been running away from her friends. Not physically this time, she'd fought the urge to run and had stayed where they could help her, but emotionally she was a million miles away, and she really needed for them to see her as she was now.

She was afraid of letting them see her, she was afraid of letting anyone see her because she knew that she wasn't okay. She knew that she was just extremely good at faking everything, and the truth was that she had no idea if she was ever going to be able to change that part of herself. It was so ingrained by now that she couldn't imagine spending a day where she was totally honest.

Leaving the appointment she felt slightly lighter, she wouldn't say better, because this was never going to get better, but she felt lighter. It felt like she could deal with all of this better, and that was at least half of her battle. When she told King that she was okay for now, it was the first time she'd been honest about her feelings to a friend in a long time, and it felt good.


	33. St. Patrick's Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My friend Stacie is fully to blame for this one. Thanks boo xx

It was just an average night in the bar, at least it had seemed that way at first. Holiday's rarely stayed average, and St Patrick's Day always went the same. Especially when the Irish crowd descended. Merri had always felt at home with them, but tonight she was sat with a very, very drunk guy who was talking emphatically about how he felt like he was drawn to join the priesthood or become a monk.

His main stumbling block would have been that he liked to have sex far too much, or by his commentary, 'stick his wood into things'. Merri had not wanted any further explanation on that one, she knew better than asking what kind of 'things' he enjoyed sticking his 'wood' in. "What about you, pretty lady. Would you be available for this old wannabe priest, or do you have some strapping young lad on your arm?"

Oh god, the panic that flew through her. She was technically single, and while she loved sex a lot, this was not the kind of situation where she would actually like to be picked up by a stranger in a bar. Looking around the men she knew in the bar she flipped a coin on who would make the best 'fake boyfriend' then pointed to Pride, knowing he at least wouldn't question what she needed.

"I'm actually with the guy who owns the bar. Have been for a couple of years." She lied through her teeth, hoping that he bought it. This guy was very, very drunk though. So there was either going to be acceptance, or there was going to be a bunch of questions Merri wasn't sure she could answer. She would make it up as she went along if she needed to, she was good at that.

Her drunk companion looked in the direction Merri had indicated for Pride, who was stood cleaning a glass talking with Sonja, getting ready for the midnight rush that always came when revelers switched from Bourbon to Frenchman. Merri was going to help behind the bar for that one, if only because she knew Pride needed the help, right now though she was going to use it as a reason to leave this booth far behind.

As if sensing her silent plea for help, Pride waved over and smiled, and she got up and apologised, when she got over to the bar she just sighed then looked back to the booth out of the corner of her eye, seeing the wannabe priest watching her with interest. "King, kiss me. Just for a second. I've attracted an admirer and I told him we were dating to get him out of my hair."

He only looked at her confused for a second, then leant down and gave her a gentle kiss before handing her the dishcloth he'd been cleaning with and smiled "Not really how I imagined our first kiss going, but I'll take it if it's the only one I'll get." It sounded like he was teasing, but from the way his fingers lingered on her cheek she suddenly wasn't so sure. What the hell was that.

The drunk admirer chose that moment to get up and leave, Merri was glad to see that he hadn't had a tab, but had paid straight away for whatever drinks he'd had. She then spent the rest of the night watching Pride while she served his customers. Keeping her usual friendly air where she could, but more than a little confused about what he'd meant. Come closing time, she was glad to get time alone.

He didn't address it while they watched the stragglers leave and put the lighting on to clean up. They both just went through the motions she'd done a million times before with him. When they finished cleaning the bar up, emptying the taps for the night, she stood and looked at him, just waiting to see what he did. After a second he just came up to her and kissed her hard, pulling her in.

This was more what she'd pictured for their first kiss, and it felt far more satisfying than the quick peck with an audience. She was willing to wipe that one from her mind as she thought about this one. All it had taken was a drunk Irishman hitting on her on St Patrick's Day to get them to this point, maybe it should have happened earlier. But it was happening now, at the right time.


	34. Hey Lovely, I'm Sorry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This idea was born of a song (by As It Is, of course) and this actually started out as a roleplay starter... it did not stay that way as after 300 words I was like "I'll let Merri ramble to 750 then cut out what I need". So I did, and the full text is going here. The title is a play on "Hey Rachel, I'm Sorry" by As It Is.

It had been two years since she left, almost to the day, but she hadn’t been able to miss this. Just like she’d never missed one of Laurel’s performances, there was no chance she was missing her graduation. Moving around the country, going wherever she was needed, working as a consultant for hire when a police service needed help working with the feds. It wasn’t easy, but she had always made it back to Louisiana for Laurel. Since she’d left, she's avoided everyone she used to know, avoided all the people she'd called friends, all because she was far too afraid of hurting them and causing them more pain than she already had done. This was why she never got herself connected to anyone. This was why she stayed away and didn't let them get in because when they did it was inevitable that the bad would come for them.

As she arrived in the open air arena that was holding the graduation, Merri wondered if she was making a mistake. Since her father had died and Olivia had returned to her native Tenessee, Merri had found herself craving a full-time return to the only place she'd ever called home. She missed her father terribly, and that had made her want the familiarity of all these people and all the places that she had come to love. She didn't know if she'd be accepted if she returned, and explaining that she'd spent the last two years trying to find herself without Emily's murder and Russo's betrayal hanging over her might not go down well. She hoped that it would be, but she was afraid. She looked around and recognised Pride immediately, she walked over and sat a couple of seats away from him, not getting the nerve to say anything.

The ceremony was just like every one that Merri had ever been to, though she couldn't help but smile when Laurel waved to both her and her father. Still, though, Merri couldn't get the nerve to speak to him. It was only when she was waiting there for Laurel afterward that she even realised she didn't know what she'd say to him when she did speak to him. As Laurel came over Merri smiled brightly and gave her a hug. "Hey, I'm so proud of you. I couldn't miss your big day." She grinned and nodded as Pride came over, holding her tongue while they spoke because she just wasn't sure what to say anyway. After a few minutes, Laurel asked them both to stay where they were, and she just nodded. As they waited she said the words she'd wished to say for so long. "I really missed you."

He just stopped and stared at her for a moment, as though he was struggling with the words himself, and she wondered what he was thinking. She didn't have to wonder for long, as after a moment he just pulled her into his arms and held her close. She knew that he'd been worried about her, they'd all been worried about her but it wasn't like she'd never contacted any of them. She'd just pulled away and tried to protect her heart and theirs. It wasn't easy for her to be stood there with him, but as he held her she felt her fears disappearing, and she ended up grabbing onto the back of his shirt, holding him to her, too. She hadn't even realised that she needed him, but as she sat here she realised that she truly did need him. "Just promise me you're home, you're staying here."

"I'm staying here." She confirmed immediately, and his arms tightened around her as she buried her head into his shoulder. She couldn't imagine being anywhere else now, and as he held her she let go of the last bit of her past that was holding her back. The bit that was all that kept her from truly being over everything. As he held her, rubbing her back as he just supported her she forgave herself for all the things she couldn't prevent. She wasn't a bad person, and none of them were her fault. It wasn't her fault about Emily, or Russo, or the _Moultrie_. As she forgave herself she felt that familiar feeling of home wash over her and she knew that coming back here was the right choice, and it meant that she could tell him what he wanted to hear. "And I will never be leaving again."


	35. Part of the Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea where this came from but it was the lesser of two evils and I didn't want PinkAngel to kill me...

"Where is she?" He knew it wasn't really polite that that was the first thing he said when the door was opened to him, but he was here for one reason, and he was sure his host would forgive him for his rudeness. He was just worried about his friend, his partner, and that was why he'd run all this way. They'd decided to try and make this kind of long-distance relationship work, but it didn't mean that it was easy. Right now he was angry at himself for the fact he hadn't been able to be here. Nobody had expected this outcome to happen so quickly, and if he'd have had any idea he would have been here. When he was told that his partner was upstairs he just went up, hoping she'd answer the door. "Hey, your mom called me. Am I allowed to give you a cuddle?"

He knew that she hated to be touched without being asked, he also knew that he was generally an exception to that rule. Given the circumstances and the fact that he was here by surprise, he felt it was best to ask. When she turned to him, tears streaming down her face, he couldn't not run to her and wrap her up. "God I'm so glad you're here. He was my dad, Dwayne. My dad." She sobbed into his chest, and he pulled her to the bed, just holding her and comforting her until her breathing leveled out and she felt into a deep sleep. When he knew she was out he decided to go and make it up to her mother, hoping that she wasn't too angry at him for being so rude when he arrived. He felt like she had called him exactly because he'd put Merri first.

"Has she eaten anything in the last few days? For that matter, Olivia... Have you eaten anything?" He remembered the woman from her visit to New Orleans, where she'd seemed so completely in control of everything that he'd almost felt bad for coming into her arena and telling her what to do. Here though she was the opposite of what she'd been then. He was seeing her break down, and he was sure that having her only living daughter practically catatonic upstairs wasn't helping that. "Why don't you get comfortable, put something on the TV and read something. Merri is sleeping so she'll be OK for a little while. I'll make something for dinner, then we can talk about where to go next. He got the feeling Olivia would have a plan, but whether Merri was a part of it was another matter entirely, she could be left all alone.

Though, he wasn't going to let her be left alone, she would always have a home with him, and he would always want for her to be there. Her leaving New Orleans had broken his heart, and their subsequent reunion had only helped him feel a little better. Olivia nodded a little, but then just sat at the kitchen table. "I should be doing these things, but I can barely think of what to cook, because everything makes me think of Paul. I'm thinking of going home, my home. Back to Tennessee where my family is from, but I'm worried about Meredith." Olivia may have not always been good with Merri, but she did always care about her. King knew that it was scary when you were worrying about your child, and he had never been through this. At least he could reassure Olivia that Merri would have a home.

"Whatever you decide, and whatever Merri decides on top of that... she always has a home with me in New Orleans. With her friends. You always have friends there too, Olivia. Never doubt that." He smiled sadly and squeezed her shoulder as he passed her, wanting her to know that they all considered Merri their family, and since Olivia was all that was left of Merri's family, she was family too. King didn't want either of them to suffer, and he wasn't going to push them away. As he started to cook he fired a text to Loretta, saying that he may be bringing the Brody women back with him. They needed to go somewhere where they could regroup, and there was nowhere better for that than New Orleans, and King knew that they could always make space for people that mattered, especially if they were part of the family.


	36. Overgrown Spermatozoa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still behind, I know. I promise I'll get better.

Merri would admit to anyone that her toddlers were being a little loud and out of control tonight, but she was fairly sure that that came hand-in-hand with the spoils of their first Halloween where they were old enough to go trick-or-treating. Merri had tried to control them, but by the time they had gotten to the office they were hyperactive and not slowing down. "Sorry about the noise, everyone." She apologise as they arrived.

She knew that Chris and Sonja loved the twins, but at the same time, Merri knew that they were often a little too much all at once. That went for everyone though. "They are all Pride, aren't they?" Chris said, slinging Matthew over his shoulder for a second and laughing as Emily then tugged on his pants until he picked her up too. However much Chris loved the kids, they loved him so much more.

"King, can't you control your overgrown spermatozoa?" Sonja asked, her hands over her ears as there was another scream let out while Chris span them around, before heading through the kitchen to the courtyard. Merri was actually a little relieved that Chris had taken them away for a moment, as they were starting to push her off the edge where selling them seemed like a great idea. Somehow she doubted King would go for it.

"Only two of them are my fault, not sure who we can blame the biggest kid on." King said as they all stood and watched Chris playing with the twins in the air. "Also, how come when they misbehave they are mine and when they are calm they are Merri's. She's as bad as me." Nobody was going to believe him about that, though in reality he was right. Though Emily had been much worse.

"We can always hope they wear Chris out after today. I want to kill him." Sonja sighed and turned back to her desk. Merri was tempted to ask, but she knew that until they were home King couldn't really tell her much about it. She could ask Sonja's thoughts though. She was certain that that would actually be welcome, or at least she could hope that it would be, as there was no worse thing.

"He was my partner for a year, which one of his most annoying habits did he do today? If it was the radio, I'm sorry." That seemed like best way to open this particular conversation, if only because that was the thing that had often pissed Merri off the most. Another high-pitched squeal told her that Emily was being tickled, that sound was unmistakable for Merri, it was so high-pitched and it hurt a little.

"He was just being... I don't know how to describe it. Him? Reminding me of my job, as though we haven't been partners for five years almost." Merri remembered that, and she remembered having to tell him that she was in the job longer than he'd been, more than once. "Hopefully the twins wear him out and he sleeps tonight, keep them working." Merri was certain they'd keep him busy, as long as they could.

"Work overgrown spermatozoa, work!" She joked, nudging Sonja with her elbow gently. She hated seeing them all so overworked, but there wasn't much she could offer tonight, as she knew they'd probably all be going to the bar afterwards anyway, though she'd just be heading home with the kids. She'd done her job today while they'd been at daycare. Tonight was for her to sleep before her work in the bar started in the morning.

"You know they'll keep him going. Why don't you get off early Sonja. Merri can help us here for ten minutes while we close up. I'll see you in the morning." King smiled and wrapped his arm around Merri while Sonja gave him a slightly confused look. "I'm not coming tonight, have to be daddy." Merri was never more grateful for her husband than she was at that moment, as she really needed a break.

After Sonja ducked out Merri just watched her kids and her psuedo-brother trying to kill each other and thought how perfect this all seemed for her. She loved that she had all this to go for, and she even loved that she had a best friend that referred to her children as overgrown spermatozoa. It took all kinds to make a family, and nobody could deny that this is what she had here. A family.


	37. Last Request

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... it took 7 months... but I killed Brody again. This is sort-of AU from my fic "Save Me A Spark"

Rarely had they all been so badly affected by something that had happened thousands of miles away, but this one had hit a lot closer to home. It had hurt them all in a way nobody had really expected. In the 12 months since they'd last seen Meredith Brody they had all thought about her, and they still spoke about her. King had therefore never expected to get the call he'd gotten from Olivia Brody that morning. She had sounded ruined, and he could tell she was crying, but she had said Merri would have wanted them all to know that she had been killed in an undercover assignment in another place. Olivia hadn't mentioned any other details, and besides confirming Merri had an assignment and was listed MIA, King hadn't been able to find anything out either. He was still looking, he wanted to understand what had gone on.

Chris and Sonja had disappeared almost as soon as they'd gotten the news, King wasn't going to question them. He'd quickly given their new agent the day off, knowing they wouldn't understand the pain that was involved. Merri wasn't just a former agent here, she was their friend, and for King she'd been even more. Right now he was sat in the bar with Sebastian, Patton and Loretta, Danny agreeing to stay with CJ for the night so that everyone could stay out to talk about Merri. King hadn't even realised how much he needed that, and he was sure that eventually Chris and Sonja would make their way back here. Sure enough, an hour later they turned up and share their memories of their fallen friend. It wasn't easy to think about how she wasn't in the world anymore, but they could honour her.

"One of you Dwayne Pride?" He heard suddenly, looking up he nodded and held a hand up. He was handed an envelope and asked to sign it, then he slid the contents out, it was a handwritten letter addressed to just him, and a DVD addressed to all of them. He didn't know what either would contain, but he knew that handwriting well. The flowing letters and slanted handwriting was Merri's, and it actually hurt in a way he couldn't explained that he recognised it. He missed her so deeply after a year, their text messages and the promises they'd made to each other all destroyed in an instant. He couldn't even think about reading the letter right away, but the team pressed for him to hand the DVD over to Patton, who always had some sort of gadget with him that he would be able to use to get the video playing for them.

"Hey everyone. So, if you're getting this the mission I'm on went... well it went a little wrong. I've been here about six months now, it's the middle of November and it's so far been going well. Hopefully you never hear this. I just want you all to know that I miss you so much, and I wish I was back there with you. I have one request for all of you, please don't forget me, and don't regret knowing me. I can make it through a lot, but that's the only thing I ask. Before I let you all go... Dwayne, you're going to be a dad, again. I'm due in February. I'm sorry I can't tell you in person but... if you see this my unit chief will be there to explain soon. I love you all. Goodbye, I guess." She stood up and King fought his tears.

He felt the congratulations, people patting him on the back learning he was a father again, but given that he had found this out in a death note he wasn't sure he could really accept anything that was said right now. Everyone had suspected about him and Merri, and this had been the proof they needed, but nobody felt much like gloating. King didn't even try to hide how broken he now felt, and he was going to have to do it all alone. Merri said her unit chief would be coming to explain, and he was worried about what that was going to mean for him. He didn't want to have to think about his child being in danger too. He needed to think about how he was going to manage this, but that was a worry for the morning. Right now, he was here to mourn his friend.


	38. Request Honoured

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a continuation of the last one.

For almost 10 years, King had been doing this all on his own, raising his son with the help from his friends and his daughter, but the older Bevan got, the harder it was to dodge his questions about what happened to Merri. They spoke about her often, but he'd always avoided talking about what had happened to her. Not because he didn't want Bevan to know, but because it hurt. "Dad, where is mommy?"

"She... It's time I tell you more about what happened when you were a baby." Bevan was coming up for his 10th birthday, and he should know that his mom was a superhero, that she'd died to help protect people, but It hurt King so much to think about her. Think about the woman he'd met that day almost 13 years earlier, her rearranging his office and saying that she thought she had a pattern.

"OK dad, can we look at the pictures while we do?" The question was quiet, and Pride knew that it was hard for Bevan sometimes. Paul and Olivia had ended up moving to New Orleans, and they looked after him whenever King had to work, but that wasn't the same as having your mom. Bevan grabbed the photo album, and King sat down beside him, thinking of the best way for him to explain this.

"When your mom was pregnant with you, she worked the same job as me, and then she was sent undercover. The case was very long and very dangerous. When you were about 4 months old, she was protecting you and was killed while waiting for the trial of the men she was investigating, but you stayed quiet, and were brought here, to live with me. Your mommy was a hero, never let anyone say different."

"Why did she have to go away if she was having me? Did you not want me?" That question broke his heart, and Pride wrapped an arm around his son and held him closely before kissing the top of his head. King had wanted both of them, if he'd have known about Bevan he would have begged for her to come home. Maybe that was why she'd never told him. She didn't give him chance.

"I didn't know about you until your mom died, and though I never got to tell her, I loved her so very much. Every day she was away I thought about her, and I wished she'd come home." In truth, while he loved his son very much, he missed his former partner more than he could have ever imagined. It was a physical ache and he wished that he could have told her his feelings.

Telling their son was almost as good, and they had Merri's memorial that they went to regularly, there in the courtyard at the NCIS office. She was the only agent he'd ever lost, and that cut him more deeply than he could admit. She was the one he let get close, and she was the one he lost. "I'm sorry dad, I didn't mean to make you sad. I just want to know about mom."

"I will always be sad about your mom, just like your mammy and pappy will be and all your aunts and uncles. She was a part of all our lives." it was the easiest way to explain it to a little boy who had never truly felt loss, though he knew Merri was gone, he hadn't known her since he was very small. How King wished that were different, if he could do it over."

"She's with aunty Emily now though, she'd like that." Bevan was his mother's son in some ways, and his ability to see the bright side no matter what was happening was definitely one of the things he had inherited from Merri. King wished that he could see her again, but Bevan was right, she would be so happy to be reunited with Emily, and she'd be glad to know that her son was being loved.

"Yeah, she would, but I'm sure she misses us just as much as we miss her. Now, did you get all you homework done?" King needed to think about every day life, or he'd end up thinking about the road less travelled, and that would just end badly. He missed Merri deeply, but this was the best he could ever really make of it, and he always had a part of her there with him.


	39. Chapter 39

Meredith hadn't been sure what she was thinking about when she was away, but eventually she started feeling better. It took longer than two weeks, but six months later she was back and the leave of absence had done her good. She felt better about being back with her team, and she felt better about being herself again. "Merri, are you still down there. Come back to bed." She heard, and turned back to smile.

She hadn't expected to come back to this, to him being as willing to throw away their careers if they were found out as she was. Their team knew, but that was it. They weren't telling anyone else, though Merri was now beginning to want to tell her family, especially her mother. "I was just thinking babe, I'll be back up in a minute. Want coffee?" She yelled back, hoping it distracted him long enough.

He wasn't as interested in telling her family, they'd only told Laurel because she was the one who'd caught them in the act. If she hadn't seen them they probably wouldn't have told anyone. Merri had been the more cautious one at first, but now she was ready to quit if it came to it. She wanted to be with Dwayne, and she wanted that more than she cared about keeping her job right now.

"You really want to tell your momma, huh?" She heard, and looking toward the stairs. When she did she knew for certain that he knew what she wanted. She hoped that he would finally agree to telling her. Merri just really, desperately wanted everyone to know that she was happy. "Why don't you call her, invite her and your dad down here for Christmas. We'll work something out and we can tell them both then."

"Thank you." She muttered, and after a moment she climbed the stairs and sat next to him, looking down at their office. She loved this place, it was her home away from home, but she knew that they couldn't stay here forever. They needed a place of their own, especially if they were planning on having the family they had spoken about. Once upon a time she hadn't wanted children, now she wasn't so sure.

In fact, now she was going the other way, in her time away she'd realised that she wanted more than this. She wanted to be able to look at her future and see more in it than just her work. All she'd seen until now was work, but now, with Dwayne, she could see more than that. "Merri, if the wrong people learn about this you'll be pulled away again. I can't live with that."

"I would quit before that happened Dwayne. I'm not leaving New Orleans again. This is what I want. This, me and you. She knew it was going to work, and she was sure that nothing at all would come between them again. She didn't think that she would be able to deal with it very much longer anyway. "I want more than this. I fell in love with you, and this just isn't really enough."

"Merri... I've only been divorced eighteen months, I'm not sure I'm ready for that again." Dwayne defended and Merri held a hand up and shook her head. Marriage was actually the last thing on her mind. She didn't think she'd ever be ready for that. That seemed like such a long step away from where she was ready to be. Sure, she wanted more than they had, but she didn't think that she'd handle it.

"No, no no no. I'm not ready for that either so don't worry about that. But... we're living in the office, we can't even be together outside of this building. I just... I need more than to be hidden away. I want to be able to tell everyone how I feel, to hell with my job, you matter more." Merri shook her head then leant on his shoulder, taking his hand. "I just want you."

He squeezed her hand, and she hoped he understood that all of that was hard for her to say. "You have me. I love you too." He said the simple words, the ones that would help her through all of this while she was trying to work it out. Now she was certain that they could make it through, and right now she just wanted to forget her past. The future was finally looking up.


End file.
